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DECISION No. 153/2004/QD-TTg OF AUGUST 17, 2004 PROMULGATING THE ORIENTED STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOP-MENT IN VIETNAM (VIETNAM’S AGENDA 21)

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;

At the proposal of the Minister of Planning and Investment,

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To promulgate the Orientated Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam (Vietnam's Agenda 21) in order to sustainably develop the country on the basis of closely, rationally and harmoniously combining economic development, social development and environmental protection (see the document attached herewith).

The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam is a framework strategy containing major orientations which serve as legal bases for the ministries, branches, localities, organizations and concerned individuals to organize the implementation thereof, and at the same time reflect Vietnam's international commitments.

Article 2.- The Minister of Planning and Investment shall be responsible for organizing and guiding the implementation of the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam.

The ministers, the heads of ministerial-level agencies, the heads of Government-attached agencies, the presidents of the provincial/municipal People's Committees shall base themselves on the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam to formulate oriented strategies on sustainable development of their respective ministries, branches or localities.

Article 3.- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette.

The ministers, the heads of ministerial-level agencies, the heads of Government-attached agencies, the presidents of the provincial/municipal People's Committees shall have to implement this Decision.

For the Prime Minister

Deputy Prime Minister
NGUYEN TAN DUNG

ORIENTED STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (Vietnam's Agenda 21)

(Promulgated together with the Prime Minister's Decision No. 153/2004/QD-TTg of August 17, 2004)

Introduction

The concept of "sustainable development" emerged in the environmental protection movement in the 70s of the 20th century. Sustainable development was defined by the World Council on Environment and Development (WCED) of the United Nations in its 1987 report "Our Common Future" as "the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

At the Earth Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg (the Republic of South Africa) in 2002, "sustainable development" was determined as a development process which closely, rationally and harmoniously combines three development aspects, namely economic development (particularly economic growth), social development (particularly social progress and justice; hunger eradication and poverty reduction and employment), and environmental protection (particularly treatment and remedy of pollution, rehabilitation and improvement of environmental quality; prevention and fight of forest fires and destruction; rational exploitation and thrifty use of natural resources). The criteria for evaluation of sustainable development include stable economic growth; good realization of social progress and justice; rational exploitation and thrifty use of natural resources, protection and improvement of the quality of the living environment.

Sustainable development is an urgent demand and inevitable tendency in the course of development of mankind and, therefore, it has been consented by the countries in the world to turn into the agenda for each development period of history. At the Earth Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992, 179 participating countries adopted the Rio de Janeiro Declaration on environment and development with its 27 basic principles for sustainable development and the Agenda 21 on solutions to sustainable development for the whole world in the 21st century. The Summit recommended that each country, based on its own conditions and characteristics, formulate its own national, branch and local agendas 21. Ten years later, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg (the Republic of South Africa) in 2002, 166 participating countries adopted the Johannesburg Declaration and the implementation plan for sustainable development. The Summit reaffirmed the principles set out previously and continue committing to fully implement the Agenda 21 for sustainable development.

Since the Earth Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992, 113 countries in the world have so far formulated and implemented their national Agenda 21 for sustainable development and 6,416 local Agendas 21, and at the same time have established independent agencies for implementation of these Agendas. The regional countries such as China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia… have all formulated and implemented their Agendas 21 for sustainable development.

The Government of Vietnam sent high-ranking delegations to participate in the above mentioned summits and committed to achieve sustainable development, actively realizing the "National Plan for environmental and sustainable development for the 1991-2000 period" (Decision No. 187-CT of June 12, 1991), creating preconditions for the process of sustainable development in Vietnam. The sustainable development viewpoint has been asserted in the Political Bureau's Directive No. 36-CT/TW of June 25, 1998 on intensifying the environmental protection work in the period of national industrialization and modernization, which stressed: "Environmental protection is an essential content which is inseparable from the socio-economic development line, undertakings and plans of all levels and branches, as an important basis for ensuring sustainable development and successfully realizing the cause of national industrialization and modernization." The sustainable development viewpoint has been re-affirmed in the documents of the IXth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam and in the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy that "rapid, efficient and sustainable development and economic growth are combined with social progress and justice as well as and environmental protection" and that "socio-economic development is closely associated with environmental improvement, ensuring harmony between artificial and natural environments, and preserving bio-diversity." Sustainable development has become the line and viewpoint of the Party and the policy of the State. In order to achieve the sustainable development objectives, many other directives and resolutions of the Party, many legal documents of the State have been promulgated and implemented; numerous programs and research subjects in this domain have been carried out and crowned with initial outcomes; many basic contents on sustainable development have been translated into practice and step by step become an inevitable trend of the national development.

Over the past years, Vietnam's socio-economic development has still relied largely on the exploitation of natural resources; productivity remains low; production technologies and consumption patterns have still used a lot of energy and raw materials and discharged a lot of waste. Rapid population growth, high rate of poor households, inadequate basic education and healthcare services and unchecked social evils… remain to be burning issues. Numerous natural resources have been exhaustedly exploited and wastefully as well as inefficiently used. The natural environment in many areas has been destroyed, polluted and degraded to alarming levels. The system of policies and legal instruments remains incomprehensive and fails to effectively combine the three aspects of development, namely economic development, social development and environmental protection. The socio-economic development strategies, overall plannings and plans of the country as well as branches and localities have ignored the true combination and close integration of these three aspects of development.

In order to achieve the country's sustainable development objectives set in the Resolution of the IXth National Party Congress and to fulfill international commitments, the Government of Vietnam has promulgated the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam (Vietnam's Agenda 21).

The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam is a framework one, containing major orientations serving as legal bases for the ministries, branches, localities and concerned organizations as well as individuals to implement and coordinate actions to ensure Vietnam's sustainable development in the 21st century. The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam identifies challenges Vietnam is confronting, and lays down undertakings, policies, legal instruments and priority areas of action which need to be realized for sustainable development in the 21st century. The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam shall not substitute the existing strategies, overall plannings and plans but serve as a basis for concretizing the 2001-2010 ten-year socio-economic development strategy, the national environmental protection strategy till 2010 and orientations up to 2020, formulating the 2006-2010 five-year socio-economic development plan as well as strategies, overall plannings and plans of all branches and localities in order to closely, rationally and harmoniously combine economic development with social progress and justice, and environmental protection, guaranteeing the country's sustainable development. In the course of implementation, the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam shall be regularly reviewed and revised to suit each stage of development, update with new knowledge and awareness with a view to further perfecting Vietnam's path of sustainable development. Based on the current planning system, the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam focuses on priority activities which should be selected and carried out in the coming ten years.

The Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam comprises 5 parts.

Part 1: Sustainable development - Vietnam's inevitable path

Part 2: Priority economic areas for sustainable development

Part 3: Priority social areas for sustainable development

Part 4: Priority areas in natural resource utilization, environmental protection and pollution control for sustainable development

Part 5: Sustainable development implementation organization

Part 1

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - VIETNAM'S INEVITABLE PATH

I. Actual situation of sustainable development in Vietnam in recent years

1. Achievements:

After eighteen years of renewal, Vietnam has recorded enormous achievements in the areas of socio-economic development and environmental protection.

a/ Regarding economic aspects:

Vietnam's economy has been step by step transformed from a centrally planned economy to a socialist oriented market economy. The economy has achieved a high and relatively stable growth rate. In the 90s (of the 20th century), the gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 7.5%. GDP in the year 2000 was over twice that of 1990. In 2003, GDP grew 7.24%, and in the three-year (2001-2003) period, the average annual growth rate was over 7.1%.

In agriculture, food production jumped from 19.9 million tons (paddy equivalent) in 1990 to over 37 million tons in 2003, the per-capita grain food increased from 303 kg in 1990 to 462 kg in 2003, thus having not only ensured stable food security for Vietnam but also put the country on the list of the biggest rice exporters in the world. Thanks to food security, commercial agricultural crop farming and husbandry have favorable conditions for development. Rice, coffee, rubber, cashew nuts, tea, peanuts, vegetables and fruits, pork and aquatic and marine products have become significant agricultural export products of Vietnam.

Industry has been restructured and has gradually recorded stable growth. Over the past 10 years, its average annual growth rate has been 13.6%; of which the State sector, non-State sector and foreign-invested sector recorded a growth rate of 11.4%, 11.4% and 22.5% respectively. In terms of production value, industrial production capacity in 2000 was 3.6 times that of 1990. In three years 2001-2003, industry continued to develop fairly high; production value increased by 15%, of which the State sector, non-State sector and foreign-invested sector grew 12.1%, 19.8% and 15.6% respectively.

Services have been expanded and their quality improved, meeting economic growth requirements and people's living needs. The production value of services increased by an average of 8.2% in ten years (1990-2000) and over 7% in three years (2001-2003). Domestic market has been more open with the participation of various economic sectors. In 2000 the value of goods sold on the domestic market was 12.3 times over 1990. In three years (2001-2003), the domestic market became more vibrant, with the total annual average volume of goods circulated on the market increasing by over 12%.

Transport and communications infrastructure has developed rapidly, better meeting socio-economic development requirements. The value of transport, storage and communication services was up by 1.8 times.

Tourism has recorded a relatively high growth rate; many tourist centers have been upgraded, restored or renovated. Particularly, in recent years efforts have been concentrated on exploiting and raising the humane values and national cultural traits in tourist routes, making tourism more and more diversified and attractive to domestic and foreign tourists.

Post and telecommunications services have rapidly developed with basically modernized domestic telecommunication networks. Many modern communication means of international standards have been developed, initially meeting the country's information, trade and international economic integration demands. The insurance service market has come into existence with the involvement of enterprises of domestic and foreign economic sectors. Important changes have been recorded in financial and banking services. Other services such as legal consultancy, science and technology, education and training, healthcare… started to develop.

As production develops and financial and monetary regulation policies are efficiently implemented, the macro-economic environment has been stabilized, creating favorable conditions for investment attraction and improvement of people's living standards.

b/ Regarding social aspects:

Vietnam has recorded many significant achievements in social development. State investment in social areas has been increasing, and now accounts for over 25% of the State budget, of which special priority is given to hunger eradication and poverty reduction, job generation, education and training, vocational training, medicine, people's health care, control and prevention of social evils, science and technology, environmental protection as well as other basic social services.

A legal system has been introduced, meeting the practical requirements as well as the country's renewal requirements in the new situation, such as the Civil Code, the Labor Code, the Law on Protection of the People's Health, the Law on Child Protection, Care and Education; the Law on Environmental Protection; the Education Law; the Science and Technology Law; the Ordinance on Preferences for People with Meritorious Services; the Ordinance on the Disabled, the Insurance Law...

Many national target programs on social development have been implemented with high social impacts. The seven national target programs in the 1998-2000 period on hunger eradication and poverty reduction; job generation; population and family planning; HIV/AIDS prevention and control; elimination of some social diseases and dangerous epidemics; clean water and environmental sanitation for rural areas, building of the force of talented athletes and key sport centers; crime prevention; as well as other target programs on socio-economic development in mountainous and remote communes meeting with special difficulties; expanded immunization for children; illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization, control and prevention of social evils… have been implemented with good social impacts. National funds for hunger eradication and poverty reduction, assistance in the generation of jobs, gratitude funds, affection funds, funds for poor children overcoming difficulties… have been established and effectively operated. In the 2001-2005 period, six national target programs on hunger eradication, poverty reduction and employment; clean water and environmental sanitation for rural areas; population and family planning; prevention and control of some social diseases, dangerous epidemics and HIV/AIDS; culture, education and training have been approved and actively implemented and have recorded encouraging initial social results.

Living standards of people in both urban and rural areas have been markedly improved. Achievements recorded in hunger eradication and poverty reduction have been highly appreciated domestically and internationally. The percentage of poor households nationwide, based on national poverty standards (old standards), decreased from 30% in 1992 to 10% in 2000 with an annual average drop of nearly 300 thousand households. Based on new standards, by the year 2003 the percentage of poor households was about 11%. Based on the internationally comparable poverty standards of Living Standards Surveys of 1993 and 1998, the overall poverty percentage declined from 58% in 1993 to 37% in 1998 and the food poverty rate decreased from 25% to 15% in the same period. The number of employed people increased from 30.9 million in 1991 to 40.6 million in 2000 with an annual average growth rate of 2.9%. Each year, about 1.2 million new jobs were created.

As of 2000, national standards of illiteracy eradication and primary education universalization were achieved nationwide. Over 90% of the population had access to health services; 60% of households had clean water. TV coverage was 85% and radio coverage was 95% of the whole country's area.

Social indicators have been considerably improved. Vietnam's human development index (HDI) increased from 0.611 in 1992 to 0.682 in 1999, ranking the 120th in 1992 and the 101st in 1999 among 162 countries and the 109th among 175 countries in 2003. Compared to countries which have similar per-capita GDP, Vietnam's HDI is considerably higher. With regard to gender development index (GDI), in 2003 Vietnam ranked the 89th among the total 144 countries. Women account for 26% of the total number of National Assembly deputies, making Vietnam to be one of the 15 countries that have the highest percentage of female members in the State powerful organ.

c/ Regarding the use of natural resources and environmental protection:

Vietnam has made great efforts to overcome the environmental consequences of the wars. Many important policies on natural resource management and use and environmental protection have been formulated and implemented in recent years. The system of State management over environmental protection has taken shape at central and local levels. Environmental management and environmental protection awareness and responsibility education activities have been increasingly expanded to all organizations and individuals and qualitatively improved. The work of education and communication on environmental protection has been stepped up. Environmental protection contents have been included in the teaching programs at all educational levels of the national education system.

The implementation of the above-mentioned policies has contributed to strengthening the management, rational exploitation and thrifty use of natural resources, preventing environmental pollution, degradation and incidents; restoring and clearly improving the quality of the ecological environment in some areas.

2. Major drawbacks:

In addition to the above mentioned achievements, development sustainability has not yet been given due attention in the national, branch and local socio-economic development plans. There still remain the following major drawbacks:

a/ Regarding awareness:

The sustainable development view has not yet been reflected clearly and consistently in the system of the State's regulating policies and instruments. Socio-economic policies are still inclined to rapid economic growth and social stability but fail to pay adequate attention to sustainability in the exploitation and use of natural resources and the environmental protection. On the other hand, the environmental protection policies have focussed on remedying environmental incidents, rehabilitating degradation and improving the environmental quality but lacked long-term development orientations to meet the future needs of society. The process of formulating socio-economic development plannings and plans has yet to be closely combined with, and rationally integrated into, the process of formulating environmental protection policies. An effective sustainable development management and monitoring mechanism has not yet been clearly established.

b/ Regarding economical aspects:

Due to low development resources, there have been insufficient physical conditions for satisfying sustainable development requirements. Investment has been mainly concentrated on projects that bring about direct benefits while very little investment has been made in reproducing natural resources and protecting the environment.

As compared to other countries, Vietnam's debts have not yet reached a dangerous level but are rapidly increasing, and may threaten the sustainability of development in the future, especially when loans have been inefficiently used. The degree of processed materials in Vietnam's economy is still very low but the amount of raw material, fuel and material consumed per product remains high. The majority of domestically consumed and exported products are unprocessed; economic growth relies mainly on extensive development… while natural resources are limited and have been exploited to the permissible limit.

The trend of decline in prices of unprocessed products in the world market has caused many problems for agricultural growth in Vietnam. With its current production structure, in order to maintain the same income levels as previously, Vietnam has to sell more commodities in kind.

Development objectives of industries using natural resources are contradictory and have not yet been appropriately combined. Administrations at both central and local levels have not yet effectively managed the use of natural resources and the environmental protection.

c/ Regarding social aspects:

Pressure of population growth, more and more critical underemployment and high percentage of poor households remain to be big hurdles to sustainable development. The quality of human resources is still low. The quantity and quality of skilled labor force (in occupational structure, skills and qualification) fail to meet the requirements of the labor market.

The rich-poor gap and the social stratification tend to rapidly increase in the market economy. The consumption patterns of the population have followed the conventional patterns of developed countries, consuming more materials, raw materials and energy and discharging many wastes and toxic substances. These consumption patterns have been overburdening and will overburden the natural environment with wastes and excessive exploitation.

A number of social evils such as drug addiction, prostitution, HIV/AIDS - the century's plague, and corruption, have not yet been effectively prevented, thus causing loss and waste of wealth, threatening social stability and destroying the ecological balance.

d/ Regarding the natural resource use and environmental protection

Since importance has been attached to economic development, particularly GDP growth while little attention has been paid to natural systems, the wanton exploitation and wasteful use of natural resources leading to environmental degradation and an imbalance in the ecological systems has been very common. Some production, business and service establishments, hospitals… have caused serious environmental pollution. The process of rapid urbanization has resulted in excessive exploitation of underground water, pollution of surface water sources, air and accumulation of solid wastes. Particularly, areas with high bio-diversity, forests, marine and coastal regions have not yet been protected, and are therefore under overexploitation.

Despite remarkable progress has been made in environmental protection activities, the degrees of environmental pollution, degradation and quality reduction continue to increase. This indicates that the operational capability and efficacy of the apparatuses in charge of environmental protection have not yet met the requirements of sustainable development.

Inter-branch, interregional, international and global environmental protection work should be performed from the grassroots levels, namely the ward/ commune and district levels. We still lack integrated environmental management methods at the regional, interregional and inter-branch levels while various levels and branches still have overlapping functions and tasks in the environmental protection work. State management over the environment has been performed only at the central, branch and provincial levels. None or very little of this work has been done at the district level while nothing has been performed at the commune level. Some regional socio-economic development plannings have been formulated, but there have not yet been any mechanisms requiring localities and branches to join in formulating and implementing these plannings.

II. Main objectives, viewpoints, principles and priority activities for sustainable development in Vietnam

1. Objectives:

The overall objective in the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy of the IXth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam is "To bring the country out of underdevelopment, markedly improve the people’s material, cultural and spiritual life; lay foundations for Vietnam to basically become an industrial country by the year 2020; to strengthen human resources, scientific and technological capabilities, infrastructure, economic potential, national defense and security; to basically establish institutions of the socialist-oriented market economy and heighten the country's position in the international arena." The development viewpoint in the above-said strategy is affirmed that "rapid, efficient and sustainable development and economic growth are accompanied with social progress and justice and environmental protection"; "Socio-economic development is closely linked to environmental protection and improvement, securing the harmony of artificial and natural environment, conserving bio-diversity."

The overall objective of sustainable development is to achieve material prosperity, spiritual and cultural wealth, equity of all citizens and consensus of the society, the harmony between humans and nature; development must represents the close, rational and harmonious combination of economic development, social development and environmental protection.

The economically sustainable development objective is to achieve stable growth with a rational economic structure, meeting the demands for improving people's living standards, avoiding recession or stagnation in the future and avoiding the burden of debts to be left on future generations.

The socially sustainable development objective is to obtain high results in the realization of social progress and justice, guaranteeing increasingly improved nutrition and healthcare quality for the people, educational and employment opportunities for everyone, reducing poverty and narrowing the rich-poor gap between social strata and groups, reducing social evils, raising equity in the interests and obligations of all members and all generations in a society, maintaining and promoting national cultural diversity and identity, continuously raising the level of civilization in material and spiritual life.

The environmentally sustainable development objective is to rationally exploit, thriftily and efficiently use natural resources; effectively prevent, stop, handle and control environmental pollution, well protect the living environment; protect national parks, nature conservation zones, biosphere reserve zones, and conserve bio-diversity; overcome environmental degradation and improve the environmental quality.

2. Main principles

To attain the above mentioned objectives, in the process of development, we should adhere to the following principles:

First, human beings are the center of sustainable development. The consistent principle at all stages of development is to better meet physical and spiritual demands of people of all strata, to build a rich and strong country, an equitable, democratic and civilized society.

Second, to consider economic development as the central task in the coming stage of development, to ensure food security and energy for sustainable development, ensure food hygiene and safety for people; closely, rationally and harmoniously combine economic development with social development; rationally exploit, thriftily and efficiently use natural resources within the permissible limits in terms of ecology and sustainable environmental protection, to gradually implement the principle of "every aspect (economic, social and environmental) shall be beneficial."

Third, environmental protection and improvement must be considered an indispensable element of the development process. To actively prevent and control negative impacts caused by human beings' activities on the environment. It is necessary to widely apply the principle: "people who cause harms to natural resources and the environment shall have to pay compensation therefor." To build a comprehensive and effective system of legislation on environmental protection. To actively incorporate, and adopt sanctions to force the integration of, environmental protection requirements into every socio-economic development planning, plan, program and project. To consider the environmental protection requirement an important criterion for evaluating sustainable development.

Fourth, the development process must satisfy the needs of the present generation in an equitable manner without causing problems to the life of future generations. Conditions must be created for all people and communities in society to have equal opportunities for development, have access to all common resources and be equally provided with public benefits. It is necessary to create good material, intellectual and cultural foundations for the posterity and economically use non-renewable natural resources, preserve and improve the living environment, develop a clean and environmentally friendly production system; and build up a healthy lifestyle which is harmonious with, close to, and fond of, nature.

Fifth, science and technology constitute the foundation and driving force for industrialization and modernization as well as for rapid, vigorous and sustainable development of the country. Priority must be given to the extensive use of modern, clean and environmentally friendly technology in the manufacturing industries which have spill-over impacts and capacity for promoting the development of many other sectors and industries.

Sixth, sustainable development is the cause of the entire Party, administrations at all levels, ministries, branches, localities, agencies, enterprises, social organizations, population communities and all people. It is a must to mobilize to the utmost the participation of all concerned people in selecting decisions on socio-economic development and environmental protection at the local and national levels. To ensure people's accessibility to information and raise the role of people of all strata, especially women, youths and ethnic minority people, in the process of making decisions on big and long-term development investment projects of the country.

Seventh, to closely connect the building of an independent and autonomous economy with active integration into international economy for sustainable development of the country. To develop bilateral and multilateral relations and realize international and regional commitments, selectively absorb scientific and technological advances, promote international cooperation for sustainable development. To attach importance to bringing into full play advantages, improving quality, efficiency and competitiveness. To actively prevent the negative impacts of the globalisation and international economic integration process on the environment.

Eighth, to closely combine economic development, social development and environmental protection with ensuring national defence and security as well as social safety and order.

3. Priority areas of activity:

a/ In the economic area:

- To maintain rapid and stable economic growth on the basis of constantly improving efficiency, scientific and technological content, thrifty use of natural resources and environmental protection.

- To change production and technological patterns and consumption patterns along the direction of being cleaner and environmentally friendly, based on the thrifty use of non-renewable natural resources, the maximum reduction of toxic and difficult-to-decay wastes and the maintenance of individual and social lifestyles in harmony with, and closeness to, nature.

- To implement the process of "clean industrialization", which means that industrial development must be planned right from the outset with occupational structures, technology and equipment ensuring the principle of environmental friendliness. To actively prevent and treat industrial pollution and build up "green industries."

- To develop agriculture and rural areas in a sustainable manner. While stepping up the production of more and more commodities to meet market demands, it is a must to ensure food hygiene and safety, conserve and develop the land, water, air and forest resources as well as bio-diversity.

- To develop regions in a sustainable manner and build up local communities that practice sustainable development.

b/ In the social area:

- To concentrate efforts on hunger eradication and poverty reduction, generate more jobs; create equal opportunities for all people to participate in social, cultural, political, economic development and environmental protection activities.

- To further lower the population growth rate, reduce the population pressure on job generation, healthcare, education, vocational training and ecological protection.

- To direct the urbanization and migration process to ensure sustainable urban development; to rationally distribute population and labor force throughout all regions, ensuring sustainable socio-economic development and environmental protection in localities.

- To improve the quality of education in order to raise the people's intellectual level and professional qualifications suitable to the country's development requirements.

- To develop quantitatively and improve qualitatively healthcare services, improve working conditions and sanitation of the living environment.

c/ In the natural resource- environment area:

- To fight the degradation of land resources, use them in an efficient and sustainable manner.

- To protect the water environment and use water resources in a sustainable manner.

- To rationally exploit and thriftily and sustainably use mineral resources.

- To protect marine, coastal and island environments and develop marine resources.

- To protect and develop forests.

- To reduce air pollution in urban centers and industrial parks.

- To effectively manage solid and hazardous wastes.

- To conserve bio-diversity.

- To mitigate climate change and limit harmful impacts of climate change, contributing to preventing and fighting natural disasters.

Part 2

PRIORITY ECONOMIC AREAS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I. Maintaining rapid and sustainable economic growth

According to the 2001-2010 socio-economic development strategy, in the first decade of the 21st century, economic development must be rapid, efficient and sustainable and by 2010, GDP must be doubled that in 2000.

In order to maintain relatively rapid and sustainable economic growth for a long term, we need to realize the following main orientations:

1. To further accelerate economic renewal to establish and improve the mechanisms of a socialist oriented market economy, including:

- To further improve a number of macro policies with a view to creating an equal and efficient business environment, step up competition and create confidence of enterprises and people so that they invest capital in production development. To encourage the long-term development of collective and private economies. To further renew, develop and improve production efficiency of, State enterprises. To actively attract foreign investment.

- To maintain stability of the macro economic environment by improving financial policies, balancing budgets, maintaining monetary stability and controlling inflation.

- To strongly accelerate the process of active integration into international economy and trade liberalization.

- To step up administrative reform in order to gradually establish an effective, healthy and competent administration for meeting the requirements of sustainable development. To promote democracy, firmly maintain discipline and order and strengthen legislation. To build up the contingent of capable and virtuous officials and employees.

2. To transform economic development from mainly extensive growth to mainly intensive development on the basis of effectively applying scientific and technological advances for raising labor productivity and competitiveness of products and services as well as raising the efficiency of the economy in general and the efficiency of investment capital in particular.

3. To shift the economy from exploiting and using crude resources to using as processing them in a more sophisticated way, thereby increasing added value in each unit of exploited resource. To gradually shift our participation in the world market with crude products to that with sophisticatedly processed products and services. To attach importance to increasing scientific and technological contents in products and services.

4. To save to the utmost all resources in development, efficiently use scarce resources and restrict consumption so that it will not encroach upon the benefits of future generations.

5. To establish an environmental economic cost-accounting system. To carry out studies so as to additionally incorporate environmental and social aspects in the national accounting system. The integrated socio-economic and environmental accounting system will comprise at least one accounting sub-system of natural resources.

II. Changing production and consumption patterns along the environmentally friendly direction

Over the past time, as a result of high economic growth and open-door economic policies, consumption by people has been markedly improved. However, there still exist some consumption tendencies that exert negative impacts on sustainable development:

1. Consumption patterns by a proportion of population, especially in urban centers, are heavily based on traditional consumption which uses unprocessed raw materials, therefore causing negative impacts on natural resource saving and sustainable development. Lavish and wasteful consumption has become increasingly popular in some strata of the population, which runs counter to the thrifty, nature-close and -harmonious way of living based on the traditional system of social values and ethics.

Exhaustive exploitation of rare and precious animal and plant species and non-renewable natural resources remains rather popular. Food chemicals, growth stimulants and genetically modified products have been used increasingly.

Energy used for daily life and energy used in transportation has increased, leading to consumption of more coal and petrol than previously, thus increasing environmental pollution. Whereas, other types of clean energy which have a great potential in Vietnam and can be widely used on a household scale such as solar, wind power, small-scale hydroelectricity, bio-gas have been studied, applied and used in a very limited way. Policies on encouraging means of transport which are economical and which have small capacity and use environmentally friendly energy are still absent.

2. In goods production and consumption, wasteful use of resources for some irrational demands has become widespread. The volumes of alcohol, beer and cigarettes that have been produced, imported and consumed have increased at a rate unproportional to low living standards and incomes of the population. Alcohol and drug addiction has not yet declined. Non-recyclable and difficult-to-decay raw materials and materials (such as metal and PVC) have been increasingly discharged.

3. Specific policies and guidance on rational consumption, especially financial policies and measures for promoting environmentally friendly consumption, are absent.

4. A proportion of population still live under the poverty line, failing to satisfy their basic demands for food, clothing, housing, education, essential commodities and services. Poverty is one of many reasons for wanton exploitation, wasteful and irrational use of natural resources. It also prevents the practice of more efficient consumption patterns in order to contribute to more sustainable development.

Priority activities for changing consumption pattern are as follows:

a/ Restructuring production activities and services for consumption:

In order to change the consumption patterns, impacts should be firstly exerted on production methods and techniques towards forming a production system which turns out products with technological chains which consume less energy and materials and raw materials and discharge less waste, particularly hazardous waste.

- For existing production systems, it is necessary to review and adjust technical standards and upgrade technologies in order to improve the environmental efficiency of products, encourage the invention of new products which economically consume energy, materials and raw materials while discharging less waste.

- To encourage the application of cleaner and more environmentally-friendly production technology, technologies for recycle and reuse of waste and discarded materials.

- To establish a rational product consumption structure for the national economy to meet basic food, clothing, housing, traveling, education, health care and recreation demands of people of all strata. To pay attention to renovating products, continuously improving quality and reducing production and service costs, attach importance to the standard of environmental friendliness in order to improve consumption quality and natural resource use efficiency.

- To develop and raise the intensive degree of integrated production and service industries which can protect and improve the environment such as afforestation, aquaculture and tourism. To restrict the development of the production of alcohol, beer, cigarettes, food and consumer goods which contain agents harmful to people's health.

b/ Taking necessary measures to direct rational consumption:

- To conduct communication and education to form a healthy way of living and rational consumption modes among people of all strata, especially teenagers and youths. To build up a civilized consumption culture which is rich in national identity and harmonious with, and friendly to, nature.

- To launch the movement for thrifty consumption and wastefulness combat. To bring into play the active roles of mass organizations and people of all strata in communicating, educating, implementing and monitoring the movement.

- To employ some economic instruments, such as consumption tax, to adjust irrational consumption behaviors.

- For regions meeting with great difficulties, to further implement policies to assist people in meeting their essential daily-life needs.

III. Implementing the "clean industrialization" process

Strongly accelerating industrialization is a central task of Vietnam in the next decade. Implementing a "clean industrialization" strategy is to plan industrial development with industrial structure, technology and equipment to ensure environmentally friendly principles from the very outset. To actively prevent and tackle industrial pollution and build up the "green industry". Environmental standards must be included in the list of the most essential criteria for selecting industries in which investment is promoted, choosing production technologies and products, zoning industrial parks and export processing zones, and formulating plans for pollution prevention, treatment and control.

Priority activities for implementing the "clean industrialization" process are as follows:

1. Regarding the legislative aspects:

- To review master plans for socio-economic development in key regions and for development of economic branches, particularly those have strong impacts on the environment in order to ensure sustainable industrial development, economical natural resource use and effective pollution control and waste management.

- To institutionalize the incorporation of environmental elements in the process of formulating annual, five-year and long-term socio-economic development plannings and plans of the whole country, ministries, branches and localities from central to local level. To improve the process of environmental impact assessment and closely supervise the implementation of the contents of environmental impact assessment; to strictly enforce regulations on conducting environmental impact assessments before granting investment licenses to enterprises.

- To formulate legal documents, mechanisms and policies, aiming to boost the process of substituting obsolete production technologies that consume a lot of energy and raw materials with advanced, modern and environmentally friendly ones.

- To encourage clean production; propagate and educate on, and raise the awareness of the importance and benefits of clean production in the sustainable development process among the business community.

- To establish standards and principles for clean production, suitable to the economic development level. To research into and develop clean production technology and equipment. To enhance the coordination between production establishments and researchers of clean production technology, and, at the same time, step up the application of these technologies to production.

- To conduct studies and issue some regulations requiring large- and medium-sized business and production enterprises to establish environmental self-observation and self-monitoring systems to provide information on wastes and the degree of pollution caused by their production activities. To conduct studies and issue indicators on the permissible maximum level of pollution in industrial parks. To quickly form a contingent of officials who are trained in managing the environment in industrial parks.

2. Regarding the economic aspects:

- In the process of industrial restructuring, priority must be given to developing clean and environmentally friendly industries. To develop and strongly promote the use of appropriate and advanced environmental protection technology and equipment; to formulate projects with full and detailed justification of measures to control pollution and protect the environment.

- To create and develop high-tech parks. To promulgate environmental safety and protection standards for application to the industries, particularly those of oil and gas exploitation and processing, electricity, electronics, and car and motorcycle manufacture.

- To gradually increase the proportion of investment in developing clean technology.

- To form a rational economic structure, ensuring an ever-increasing ratio of clean technology

3. Regarding the technical and technological aspects:

- To prevent pollution caused by new industrial establishments by improving the environmental impact appraisal and assessment process, particularly laying down the requirement that the environmental impact assessments must be completed before the investment licensing.

- To minimize pollution caused by production, business and service activities of the existing establishments. To strictly handle establish-ments which cause serious environmental pollution, forcing them to install pollution-controlling and -treating equipment, to upgrade or renew production technology, relocate their sections, all at once or one after another, out of densely populated areas and, as the highest penalty, stopping their production, business and service activities. Annually, to inventory and re-assess seriously polluting establishments nationwide, striving to control pollution.

- To conduct an environmental impact assessment of medium- and large-scale mines nationwide and report on the environmental management situation in mining and related processing industries. Those mines causing the most serious pollution shall be compelled to make investment to reduce the degree of pollution to an accepted level or shall be subject to closure. Professional agencies of provincial/municipal People's Committees shall conduct environmental impact assessments of small-scale mining activities as well as processing activities within their respective provinces or cities. All new mining projects shall be screened carefully and obliged to conduct detailed environmental impact assessments. In particular, they shall have to review and evaluate mining and processing technologies, the use and discharge of chemicals, maintenance of refuse-dumping sites and infrastructure construction.

4. Sustainable development of some branches which have special impacts on the environment:

Some economic branches such as energy, mining, construction, communication and transport, tourism have strong impacts on the environment. As a result, they must formulate soon action programs in order to ensure sustainable development, attaching importance to the application of advanced mining and processing technologies that enable the saving of natural resources and reduction of discharged waste and pollution, encouraging the use of different kinds of renewable energy and improvement of the ecological environment in mining areas.

a/ Energy industry:

Energy constitutes a key industry of the economy and also one of those industries which exert the strongest impact on the environment since coal mining, oil and gas exploitation on the continental shelf are activities that produce and use fuel and energy while causing large volumes of waste.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To strengthen legal bases for energy production, trading and consumption activities and for environmental protection. To consolidate the system of energy management agencies, enhance the capability of formulating energy development plannings and plans.

- To select optimal technologies for producing and using energy of all types, choose policy instruments, formulate development programs in order to implement the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development.

- To support the work of research and development, transfer and application of energy systems which do not harm the environment, including sources of new energy and renewable energy. To encourage the application of technology that consumes less energy and actively implement energy saving programs. To give priority to developing renewable energy sources via financial incentives and other mechanisms and policies in the national energy development strategy.

- To devise specific technological and organizational management measures for each energy sub-industry to implement programs and projects on reducing negative environmental impacts caused by energy production, trading and use activities.

- To actively participate in international cooperation and exchange activities under the United Nations' 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Changes which Vietnam signed on November 16, 1994 and is now a member of this Convention. To import and apply advanced foreign technologies to coal mining, washing and processing. To attract foreign capital and apply advanced foreign technologies to renovating and upgrading technologies in the coal industry

b/ Mining industry:

Minerals are non-renewable resources. A total of over 1,000 mines are now operating nationwide and excavating more than 50 types of different minerals. At present, due to lax management, unplanned exploitation has been relatively common, especially in small mines which are scattered in different localities. In addition to the waste of resources as a result of failing to collect all useful mineral contents, the exploitation by obsolete technology has caused forest loss, land erosion and slides, deposits in, and pollution of, rivers, springs and coastal areas.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To introduce economic, administrative instruments and legal sanctions aimed at enforcing the Law on Minerals in a more determined and efficient manner.

- To consolidate the mineral resource management system at the central level and in localities. To formulate a unified planning for using mineral resources and environmental protection.

- To renovate mining, sorting and processing technologies to make full use of mineral resources and protect the environment. To conduct research into technologies using low-content ores in order to thoroughly utilize minerals in mines and at the same time to reduce waste soil and stone, narrowing down waste-dumping sites. To seek measures to recover useful substances from waste ore-dumping sites for cleaning the environment and saving natural resources.

- To organize a rational mining process, end the situation of exploiting easy mines first while skipping difficult ones, which badly affects the mineral-mining monitoring, evaluation and planning. To limit then soon proceed to prohibit spontaneous and unplanned mining activities.

- For mineral resources in river beds, it is necessary to zone off the mining areas, refraining from causing land slides and flow change.

- To increase investment in restoration, rehabilitation and improvement of the ecological environment in mining areas.

c/ Communication and transport industry:

The system of technical infrastructures for road, railway, waterway and air transportation has been expanded and improved, creating favorable conditions for a rapid growth in transportation services, thus meeting the production, business and movement demands of the society, the industrialization cause as well as people's lives. The concentration on the construction of many transport infrastructural works in the coming time will create a better environmental landscape and transportation conditions, thereby actively contributing to the cause of national industrialization and modernization and improving people’s lives. Nevertheless, transportation also poses some challenges to sustainable development:

- A proportion of population must be relocated due to ground clearance for project execution and resettled, leading to a change in their living conditions; some cultivated land will be lost.

- The danger of air, dust, noise, river and marine pollution will increase.

- Since the construction of transport infrastructure absorbs a large volume of investment capital, of which the majority are foreign loans, the debt burden of the future generations will increase.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities should be carried out:

- To establish a system of synchronous policies for sustainable development in transport, including policies on land use, infrastructure development, construction of the public transportation network and encouragement of the private sector's participation in developing transportation, the use of transport means which consume less energy and discharge less polluting waste.

- To plan the transportation network in line with the planning on ecological areas and nature conservation zones in order to secure the development of the technical infrastructure system and the increased provision of services in harmony with regional economic development and environmental protection.

- To focus on developing the mass transit networks in large urban centers. To use economic and administrative instruments to encourage the habit of using of mass transit services. To limit the development of individuals' means of transport which consume a lot of fuel, wastefully use natural resources and pollute the environment. At the same time, to encourage the invention and widespread introduction of environmentally friendly means of transport.

- To rapidly develop the rural transportation network to well serve socio-economic development and people's daily life, especially in mountainous, deep-lying and remote areas.

- To propagate, educate about, and disseminate traffic and traffic safety legislation to reduce traffic accidents.

d/ Trade:

In the process of renewing economic mechanisms, trade is the field that sees the fastest growth rate. Besides positive impacts on socio-economic aspects, international economic integration and trade liberalization, trade has increased the danger of damaging the sustainability of development:

- Presently, Vietnam exports mainly crude and preliminarily processed products, although it has recorded initial positive changes in the commodity structure along the direction of increasing the volume of processed products. Promoting exports means an increase in the exploitation of natural resources. Unless natural resources are protected and renewed and raw materials and materials are gradually processed in a more intensive and refined manner, natural resources will be rapidly exhausted, resulting in environmental overload and degradation.

- The import of commodities containing toxic and hard-to-decay substances also increases the volume of waste.

- The import of second-hand and obsolete supplies and equipment not only constitutes a factor which causes environmental pollution, but also hinders the raising of labor productivity and production and business efficiency and harms the health of the community.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To formulate market strategies aiming to satisfy the demands of domestic markets, and stimulate the formation of rational consumption patterns.

- To consolidate the legal bases for, and the apparatus of State management over, trade and markets in order to develop the domestic market and expand external trade relations.

- To formulate long-term plans for and restructure export commodities along the direction of increasing the processed portions and added value in export commodities and services, gradually reducing the export of crude and preliminarily processed natural resources.

- To closely monitor the import of goods, technological chains and equipment to minimize waste and, at the same time, encourage the import of environmentally friendly technological chains and equipment.

e/ Tourism:

Vietnam’s tourism potential is great. Tourism development has created a lot of jobs and revenue, helped restore many cultural traditions and embellish a number of landscapes and historical as well as cultural relics. On the other hand, it also affects sustainable development.

- Hotels and facilities in service of tourism and entertainment have "boomed" without careful planning, which, in many cases, have destroyed historical relics and natural landscapes.

- Some sensitive bio-diverse ecological systems such as national parks, nature conservation zones and coastal areas have been encroached upon and greatly changed.

- The volume of polluting waste discharged by large concentrated tourist resorts is on the rise, particularly in some coastal tourist resorts.

- The socio-cultural environment has deteriorated due to the impact of imported way of living. The social evils of prostitution, drug addiction, social diseases and HIV/AIDS are the direct consequences of tourism development.

To achieve sustainable development, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To integrate cultural and social development and environmental protection into tourism development and business plans. To consolidate the apparatus of State management over tourism and integrate sustainable development requirements into the work of State management over tourism.

- To conduct environmental impact assessment for all tourism development projects.

- To encourage the development of ecological tourism. To support population communities to participate not only in the management of tourism in their respective localities in order to increase economic benefits, but also in monitoring and minimizing negative impacts and risks of tourism on the environment, cultural tradition, and living conditions of local people.

- To increase investment in, and promote communication and education to improve people's awareness about, conserving natural, historical and cultural heritages of the nation. To mobilize wide participation by administrations at all levels, tourism enterprises and population communities in developing ecological and cultural tourism and protecting heritages and the environment.

IV. Sustainable agricultural and rural development

Agriculture, forestry and fishery are the most important economic sectors in Vietnam. At present, they produce nearly a quarter of GDP. In the 1990s, remarkable progress was recorded in Vietnam's agriculture and rural areas. Food production, especially paddy production, has continuously increased both in acreage and yield, ensuring national food security and making Vietnam to become one of the top rice exporters in the world. Intensive farming has become a leading direction in agriculture with the application of new scientific and technological achievements to creation of new varieties, farming processes and product processing. Agricultural structure and rural economy have transitioned towards market-oriented diversification. However, there remain not a few challenges to sustainable agricultural and rural development. They are:

- Land and fields in rural areas have been divided into small, fragmented plots, unsuitable for the requirements of large-scale, concentrated commodity production.

- The process of agricultural mechanization and the application of advanced production processes and techniques has been slow. Production in the main agricultural areas is performed manually in almost all steps, leading to very low labor productivity in agriculture.

- Industrial impacts, especially impacts exerted by the agricultural produce-processing industry, on agriculture, forestry and fishery have still been very weak.

- The agricultural produce market remains unstable with price changes that are unfavorable to farmers.

- The reduction of diverse gene sources of plant and animal varieties due to the tendency of replacing traditional varieties with new ones has caused more difficulties to the pest and disease prevention and control. The casual use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and growth stimulants has showed signs of exceeding the permissible limit for an ecological environment, leading to soil depletion, water source pollution and harmful impacts on human health.

- Cottage and handicraft industries and craft villages have developed strongly in many rural areas, having created around 2 million jobs and increased the population's income. However, obsolete technology, weak competitiveness and the lack of outlets constitute main causes that hinder stable development in this sector. Besides positive impacts, due to unplanned development without sufficient investment in the natural resource and environmental protection, this small production sector has polluted the living environment of rural communities, especially in some craft villages where production sites are intermingled with residential areas in the same populous zone.

- The exploitation of land and underground resources, forests, fauna and flora in rural areas has resulted in the waste of a lot of valuable non-renewable resources.

Priority activities for sustainable agricultural development are as follows:

1. Regarding the legislative aspects:

- To improve the legal framework and synchronous policies relating to agricultural development; the system of management and protection of land and water resources, plant and animal varieties, and other natural resources used in agriculture, forestry and fishery; advanced farming methods and the protection of agricultural and rural environment.

- To enhance the coordination between branch, agricultural, rural and environmental management agencies and other management bodies. To provide further training for managers at central and local levels to improve their management capacity in sustainable agricultural development.

- To formulate rural development plannings, encourage rural urbanization in a proper manner via financial, technological development and population policies with a view to creating sustainable development in both urban and rural areas, establishing rational labor distribution, exchange and interaction relationships between urban and rural areas, leading to a more comfortable material as well as civilized and progressive cultural and spiritual life in rural areas.

2. Regarding the economic aspects:

- To speed up the process of field land transformation in the areas where field land is fragmented and scattered; gathering and swapping land lots to facilitate large-scale, modern farming methods.

- To formulate and implement programs for the raising of land productivity and the rational use of water resources in localities. To apply the combined agriculture- forestry and combined agriculture-forestry-fishery production systems suitable to the ecological conditions of each region for integrated and efficient use of water and land resources and climate.

- To expand the production of, and the market for, clean agricultural products, pay attention to product quality control in order to build consumer confidence in agricultural product and food hygiene and safety.

- To develop the industry of processing husbandry and aquaculture products, edible oil, sugar, vegetables and fruits in order to increase food and foodstuff categories, production scale and efficiency. To improve the environmental quality of the processing industry. To improve the systems of preserving warehouses, food processing and distribution at all levels, especially those for national food security.

- To step up the process of restructuring the rural economy, plant and animal varieties and employing rural labor. To diversify the structure of production and business to create more jobs on the spot, increase income and redistribute rural labor, thus facilitating people's stable settlement and reducing the pressure of rural-to-urban migration.

- To consolidate and further improve the existing system of technical services in agriculture, forestry, husbandry and aquaculture. To establish a system providing guidance on agricultural product production and consumption.

- To build rural infrastructure, develop irrigation facilities to expand areas under proactive irrigation. To tackle the issue of providing clean water for people and livestock in poor population regions.

- Development of non-agricultural trades and enterprises in rural areas must be combined with the construction and expansion of industrial parks with sufficient infrastructure to mitigate possibilities for causing pollution. To conduct research to establish the networks of organizations which provide consultancy, training and technical support for the development of industries, cottage and handicraft industries, in rural areas and for the development of traditional craft villages. To take initiative in planning and building clusters of craft villages, industrial, handicraft and cottage industrial parks in rural areas for economic development and at the same time abatement of environmental pollution caused by these trades.

3. Regarding the technical and technological aspects:

- To research into and apply biotechnology to developing plant and animal varieties which are of high yield and quality, pest-resistant, non-degraded and harmless to bio-diversity. To establish high-quality seed production centers, and selectively import and carefully evaluate foreign plant and animal varieties.

- To develop the production of organic, biological and slowly dissolved fertilizers for developing ecological agriculture.

- To extend the organic agricultural production, universalize the integrated pest management (IPM) process.

- To preserve local plant and animal variety gene sources.

- To strongly promote research into and development of advanced technology for preserving and processing agricultural, forestry and aquatic products.

V. Regional and local sustainable development

Vietnam has 64 provinces and centrally-run cities, divided into eight economic-geographical regions. Provinces nationwide have formulated long-term development plannings up to 2010. Plannings for each region have also been formulated. However, provincial and regional plannings have not yet integrated. Regions do not constitute a State management level. As a result, the formulation of development, development impact monitoring and assessment plans at the regional level is absent. Yet sustainable development issues normally cover a large territorial scope, requiring coordination among many provinces and cities.

Regional development strategies must, on the one hand, give priority to key economic regions which are capable of developing by leaps and bounds, and on the other hand, render support for less developed regions with more difficult conditions in order to create a certain balance in spatial development, gradually narrowing the social gaps, then proceeding to reduce economic gap in the coming years. Key economic development regions will play the role of locomotives or engines that pull the more disadvantaged mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions.

To ensure the sustainability of regional planning and regional development guidance process, it is necessary to renovate management systems along the direction of:

1. Enhancing the sustainable development capacity, awareness and responsibility of local administrations at all levels. Local administrations are directly involved in providing guidance on socio-economic development plans and natural resource use in service of the interests of their localities. They fully understand environmental impacts of socio-economic development projects in their localities and, therefore, are the most appropriate level to make plannings and plans for sustainable development in their localities.

2. All regions bring into full play their comparative advantages for development, creating their own strengths by applying an open economic structure in close association with domestic and foreign market demands. The State shall further promote the key economic regions’ role of locomotives for rapid growth and at the same time create conditions for, and make more appropriate investment in, disadvantaged regions. Unifying national, regional, provincial and municipal plannings to create their direct linkages in production, trade, investment, technical assistance and human resources. Raising the population's intellectual level and training human resources to meet the socio-economic development requirements of different regions and areas.

3. Widely involving mass organizations and people of all strata in the process of selecting and implementing local development plans based on the principle of "people know, people discuss, people do, people examine."

4. Enhancing the coordination among State management agencies in order to ensure inter-branch, inter-region and inter-territory development requirements.

5. To ensure regional and local sustainable development, it is necessary to formulate both regional and local sustainable development programs. On the basis of the analyses of natural potentials, human resources, the comparative advantages and disadvantages to development and the analysis of the economic, social development and environmental protection situation, local sustainable development programs will identify branch and regional development objectives and directions according to the sustainable development viewpoints and work out a system of measures to realize socio-economic development objectives, contents and directions, including policy measures related to the sustainable use of natural resources and environmental protection.

Part 3

PRIORITY SOCIAL AREAS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I. Efforts shall be concentrated on hunger eradication and poverty reduction and social progress and justice improvement

Over the past 10 years, Vietnam has recorded enormous achievements in hunger eradication and poverty reduction. Entering the new millennium, the poor still account for a considerable proportion of the population in Vietnam. According to the current national poverty standards, the number of poor households in Vietnam in early 2001 was 2.8 million, accounting for over 17% of the population (if international standards are applied, poor household percentage is 32%). In addition, the living standards of a large proportion of the population are barely above the poverty line. The poor have less access to basic social services and are vulnerable to many risks in life, such as natural disasters, crop failure, sickness, etc. The possibility of relapsing into poverty is very high, leading to low sustainability of hunger eradication and poverty reduction achievements. At present, there are still over 2,300 communes meeting with particular difficulties, accounting for about 22% of the total nationwide. The disparity of living standards among regions and social groups is not so big but it is on the increase. Resources mobilized for hunger eradication and poverty reduction are still too limited, compared to the demand.

In the coming decades, Vietnam will achieve social progress and justice by focusing on the following major objectives:

- To eradicate hunger and reduce poverty.

- To narrow the socio-economic development gaps between rural and urban areas, between mountainous and lowland regions.

- To support ethnic minority people in economic development and natural resource and environmental protection activities.

- To heighten women's status in socio-economic development and environmental protection activities;

- To provide conditions for vulnerable social groups to integrate into the community.

To attain the above-mentioned objectives, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

1. To consider hunger eradication and poverty reduction the central task of the socio-economic development strategy, concentrating on supporting and creating conditions for poor people and households to have the means and materials for production and provision of services, ensure food security at household level and raise their income so that they themselves can overcome their poverty; create opportunities for the poor to have access to basic social services, especially education, healthcare, and clean water; minimizing risks of natural disasters, storms and floods as well as negative impacts of the economic reform process, guarantee the sustainability of hunger eradication and poverty reduction. At the same time to support poor communes in developing their infrastructure, production and services in order to gradually narrow the development and living standard gaps between regions and strata of people.

2. To concentrate efforts on assisting poor localities to develop their economies through restructuring their economies, crops and livestock of high economic values, developing commodity production and restructuring labor along the direction of gradually increasing the proportion of labor in industries and services and reducing the proportion of labor in agriculture.

3. To closely combine the hunger eradication and poverty reduction program with socio-economic development, environmental protection and improvement programs and plans. To build and re-plan population clusters; encourage people to enrich themselves in a lawful and legitimate manner while accelerating hunger eradication and poverty reduction, thus quickly raising the living standards of people in poor communes and regions, gradually narrowing the living standard gaps between regions, ethnic groups, strata of people in order to improve the quality of life.

4. In the coming time, to focus on hunger eradication and poverty reduction in the most disadvantaged areas (communes with exceptional difficulties, former revolutionary bases, border mountainous areas, islands, deep-lying and remote areas and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities); give priority to poor women and children.

5. To well implement social support and natural disaster prevention and combat policies, reduce risks for disadvantaged groups via the mechanism of socialization and joint efforts of both the State and people. To focus on improving an appropriate social security network to satisfy pressing and urgent needs of vulnerable groups, people with economic difficulties, victims of wars and natural disasters, helping them integrate themselves into the community, preventing and restricting the relapse into chronic hunger and poverty. This is also an important condition to ensure social progress, justice, stability and sustainable development.

6. To encourage the poor communities to bring into play their internal strengths so that they themselves can strive to escape their poverty and, with supports from the Government and other communities, ensure the sustainability of hunger eradication and poverty reduction. To intensify and diversify resources for hunger eradication and poverty reduction, promote internal strengths as the major source combined with effective use of external resources from international cooperation in order to accelerate hunger eradication and poverty reduction.

7. To adopt policies and mechanisms to encourage the application of scientific and technological advances and the transfer of appropriate technology to poor communes and people for socio-economic development, job generation and income increase for the poor.

II. Further reducing population growth rate and creating jobs for laborers

Vietnam has a large population, and its labor force is abundant, young and highly dynamic in economic activities. In recent decades, Vietnam has actively implemented population and family planning strategies, aimed mainly at controlling the natural population growth rate, and has recorded good achievements. Basically, Vietnam has brought the population growth rate under control and, therefore, begun to mitigate the population pressure on development.

Despite successes gained in controlling the population growth rate, population issues, including size, structure, quality and distribution, are major challenges to sustainable development in Vietnam in many years ahead:

- Population growth is the prime cause of the reduction of forests, exhaustive extraction of natural resources and environmental degradation.

- Laborers still lack employment and the quality of the labor force remains very low.

- Rapid population growth leads to the situation in which demand for healthcare and education exceeds supply, resulting in a series of problems such as a high rate of child malnutrition; underdeveloped height and weight resulting in degradation of the race, an increasing rate of school dropouts, an increase of inequality in education between regions and ethnic groups, slow improvement of the educational quality.

The following priority activities should be carried out to overcome the above said challenges from population issues:

1. Maintaining a steady reduction in the birth rate and improve population quality in terms of physical, mental and spiritual strengths:

The results of birth reduction between now and 2010 will have a decisive significance in stabilizing the population size at a high or low level. Vietnam's population is expected to stabilize by the middle of the 21st century. The population size can be stable at a high level of over 122 million or a low level of under 113 million. To achieve this objective, the following tasks should be performed:

- Strengthening, consolidating and stabilizing the organizational system and the contingent of population officials at all levels, especially at the grassroots level, so that they can be able to organize, manage and implement population and development programs. Further enhancing the leadership of the Party and administrations at all levels in population work.

- Promoting the work of communication and education for raising awareness and change behaviors related to population, reproductive health and family planning. Concentrating on regions with socio-economic difficulties and groups with limited knowledge. Expanding and improving the quality of population education and communication modes inside and outside the school.

- Improving the quality of reproductive healthcare and family planning services with practical contents suitable to the primary healthcare framework, minimizing unwanted pregnancies, quickly reducing abortions and contributing to improving the population quality.

- Raising the capacity of gathering, processing and supplying population information and data in order to meet the requirements of evaluating the results of implementation of population strategies and programs; ensuring the integration of population data into policy and plan making in order to adjust socio-economic development and population distribution according to population changes.

- Raising people's intellectual level, enhancing the family's role and practicing gender equality to help improve the physical, intellectual and spiritual quality of the population.

- Mobilizing the combined strengths of the whole society for the population work, provide all favorable conditions for each individual, family and community to voluntarily and actively participate in the population work. Formulating and completing the system of population and development policies, which create the legal bases and driving force for the implementation process.

- Ensuring sufficient funding and operational conditions for the population work. Allocating and efficiently using resources for the population work.

2. Job generation:

Job generation constitutes a decisive factor for bringing into full play the human resources in economic development, stabilizing the society and making it healthy thus meeting the people’s urgent demands.

The population within the working age bracket will increase from 45.4 million now to approximately 60 million by 2010. The objective set for job generation is to create millions of new jobs each year, making good use of the underemployed labor force, especially in the time of slacken agricultural work in rural areas and in agriculture, and, at the same time, restructuring labor to suit the economic structure in the process of national industrialization and modernization. To achieve this objective, the following tasks should be performed:

- Restructuring the economy along the direction of rapidly increasing the proportion of industry, construction and services, reducing that of agriculture in order to establish an economic structure capable of attracting more labor and creating more jobs.

- Improving and renovating mechanisms for investment capital mobilization, use and management along the direction of diversifying capital mobilization forms and regularly adjusting interest rates and simplifying procedures for deposit and withdrawal of savings in order to mobilize more and more idle capital from the population. Accelerating equitization, establishing and well operating the capital market in order to quickly and easily mobilize and circulate capital between economic sectors and branches. Renovating the structure of the use of State investment capital, increasing medium- and long-term capital sources, providing capital supports for people, especially farmers in job creation and economic restructuring.

- Increasing the degree to which products are processed so as to create more jobs and expand the labor market. Concentrating on technological renovation, improving work skills, establishing, and developing the capacity of, processing industries in order to increase the exported volumes and proportions of processed products; reducing the export of crude materials. Seeking and expanding markets, especially considering the promotion of the labor and expert export a spearhead. It is necessary to provide good vocational training so that more laborers can be sent to work overseas.

- Establishing, developing and effectively regulating the domestic labor market. Establishing and well managing the labor market information system. Encouraging the development of an employment service system that operates transparently and effectively under the market mechanism.

- Gradually improving the legal corridor for labor and employment in order to develop healthy labor relations, protecting lawful and legitimate interests of employees and employers.

- Developing the educational and vocational training system, strengthening the linkages between the educational and vocational training system and the labor market as well as the employment promotion system.

III. Directing the urbanization and migration process for sustainable development of urban centers, rational regional population and labor distribution

Since early 1990s, the urbanization process has taken places at a rapid speed. In 1999, the population census showed the urban population at 17.9 million, accounting for 23.45% of the national population. At present, there are 623 urban centers (including five centrally-run cities, 82 provincial cities and towns, and 537 district towns).

The urbanization process now faces the following challenges:

- Planning of, and investment in, urban technical infrastructure in most Vietnam's urban centers lag behind urban socio-economic growth rates, failing to satisfy environmental protection requirements. Particularly, the water supply and drainage, solid waste collection and treatment systems, and traffic systems are poor and backward.

- Although urban technical infrastructure in big cities has received good investment for renovation and upgrading, generally it is very weak and fails to satisfy the standards of a modern city. Environmental pollution, urban ecological imbalance, and destruction of natural scenery become common concerns.

- There has been no integration of environmental protection planning into urban planning, which increases urban environmental problems, creating difficulties in overcoming their consequences. The clearest evidence is the construction of polluting factories within densely populated areas which lack adequate infrastructure and waste treatment services, thus causing serious environmental pollution.

- The rapid urbanization rate and increasing migration of people from rural to urban areas have increased pressure on housing and urban environmental sanitation.

Priority activities which need be carried out for sustainable urban development are as follows:

1. Reviewing the overall plannings for ensuring sustainable development of urban centers:

In the context of accelerated national industrialization and modernization, urban centers play a particularly important role in the cause of economic, social and cultural development, security and defense maintenance and environmental protection.

The objective of the overall planning on urban development is to construct a relatively complete national system of urban centers that have modern economic, social and technical infrastructure and a clean urban environment and are rationally distributed and developed nationwide, ensuring that each urban center can bring into full play its strengths based on its position and functions for stable, sustainable and perpetual development.

The urban development overall planning must be reviewed, with special consideration given to the principles of sustainable development, in order to ensure sustainable development for not only the entire national system of urban centers but also for each urban center.

Vietnam's urban development overall planning for the 1997-2020 period was approved by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 10/1998/QD-TTg of January 23, 1998. Accordingly, the formation and development of urban centers in the country in the coming time must follow the following major viewpoints:

- Formulation and development of urban centers shall be compatible with the production force distribution and development level.

- Big, medium and small urban centers shall be rationally distributed among regions in combination with the accelerated urbanization of rural areas and the building of new-style rural areas, thus creating balanced development among the three regions of northern, central and southern Vietnam, gradually narrowing the too big gap in socio-economic development levels of different areas.

- Urban centers shall have synchronous infrastructure, which may be of appropriate or modern level, depending on the requirements of exploitation and use of different quarters within urban centers.

- Stable, sustainable and perpetual development shall be based on a rational organization of the ecological environment and environmental protection.

- Renovation of old works shall be combined with construction of new ones; preservation of national identity and national traditions must be combined with the application of new scientific and technological advances to the renovation, building and modernization of urban centers in such a way suitable to Vietnam's practical conditions.

- Formulation and development of urban centers shall be closely combined with maintenance of security, defense, social safety and order.

- All capital sources shall be mobilized for rehabilitation and construction of urban centers; it must be guaranteed that urban centers shall be developed in strict compliance with the approved planning and law provisions.

2. Minimizing environmental impacts of urbanization through the following activities:

- To gradually upgrade the system of construction environmental sanitation standards in city and housing designs and plans. To establish and develop monitoring systems to ensure good environmental sanitation for disease prevention in urban construction.

- To intensify the gathering and treatment of solid wastes discharged from daily life and industry in urban cities and industrial parks, seeking dumping sites far from residential areas or applying recycling or composting technology to waste treatment.

- To strengthen, and enhance the capacity of, agencies in charge of managing and ensuring urban environmental sanitation.

- To set up inter-branch committees for management of urban environmental sanitation, headed by leaders of administrations of corresponding levels.

3. Orientating migration flows by regions and rural-urban areas

Migration plays the role of population redistribution to improve efficiency in using natural resources, capital, labor, etc. The precondition for migration is the differences in employment opportunity, living standards and development conditions across regions and territories. Migration is largely due to economic motivations. Particularly, some ethnic minority groups migrate because of their shifting cultivation practices.

The objective of orienting migration flows is to redistribute the population and labor, use resources in the best way to meet the requirements of the development process.

Priority activities to achieve this objective are as follows:

a/ Implementing the strategy on comprehensive economic development as the most sustainable instrument to successfully adjust migration flows:

- To develop rural areas along the direction of modernization in parallel with protecting and preserving fine rural traditions; diversify highly profitable trades; give priority to development investment in poverty-stricken areas where many emigrate. To promote the rural urbanization process so as to accelerate economic restructuring and labor division process in rural areas. To encourage rural inhabitants to create jobs in their native places. The State will provide incentives by supporting infrastructure develop-ment and lending capital for production, business and services.

- To develop urban centers rationally by encouraging the development of medium and small cities.

- To reduce disparities between regions, rural and urban areas, and population communities, facilitate sustainable social integration.

- To promote the proper and rational use of natural resources available in deep-lying and remote areas to well serve socio-economic development of population communities there.

- To formulate appropriate management policies and measures in line with development rules and levels of the country.

b/ Renovating and organizing the implemen-tation of migration policies: For each type of migration, local administrations at all levels should synchronously implement various economic, social, technical and managerial policies and measures to develop production, increase employment opportunities and incomes and develop infrastructure without exacerbating social and environmental problems in immigration localities while contributing to the improvement of migrants' working and living conditions. Organizing the fulfillment of migrants' obligations towards the new communities where they migrate to and protecting their legitimate rights concerning employment, living conditions and other interests in the labor market.

IV. Improving the quality of education to raise the population's intellectual level and professional qualifications to meet the country's development requirements

Vietnam's education and training have made significant progresses in recent years. Educational and training scopes are being expanded at all educational levels and disciplines to satisfy people's increasing learning demands. At present, nearly 94% of the population aged 15 and above is literate; all provinces and cities across the country have reached national standards of illiteracy elimination and primary education universalization; the population has an average number of schooling years of 7.3; about 8 million technically skilled laborers have been trained, accounting for 18.3% of the total 43.8 million laborers nationwide.

However, training and education in Vietnam still reveal many weaknesses in the following aspects:

- The quality of general education and training at all educational levels remains low. Essential conditions to guarantee quality are inadequate, for example, there are not enough teachers, the structure of teaching staff is imbalanced, and teachers' qualifications are low, teaching methodologies are backward, and teaching aids are insufficient.

- Efficiency of education and training is low. The percentage of trained laborers is also low, and there have been no effective measures to train manpower in order to increase the competitiveness of the economy, to develop rural areas and to assist the economic restructuring and labor distribution. University and vocational training fails to meet the social demand of labor.

- Manpower training structure is irrational in terms of levels, trades and regions. The education and training development gaps among regions in the country have not been narrowed.

- Some negative phenomena in education and training have not been precluded in a timely manner, resulting in serious consequences.

The task of education and training as included in the sustainable development strategy is to strive to continuously improve people's intellectual level, create equal opportunity for people to access education, continuously develop individuals' capability and improve the quality of human resources - a decisive factor for socio-economic development in the next decade.

Priority activities to perform the above task are as follows:

1. To renovate curriculum, content and methodology in education and training to improve the quality of comprehensive education for the young generation, raising the practicality, skills, self-study capability, attaching importance to social and humanity knowledge, supplementing modern scientific and technological achievements suitable to learners' perceptibility and reaching the general educational level in regional countries and worldwide.

2. To assist provinces meeting with difficulties in attaining the objective of junior-high education universalization by 2010 by supporting teacher training to supplement teachers to 10 most difficult provinces; supplementing funding to construct schools and boarding schools and procure teaching aids.

3. To train manpower for rural areas to provide farmers with basic knowledge about rural trades, creating conditions for farmers to diversify production and business activities so that they can create more jobs and increase their income. This activity comprises the establishment of job training networks in rural areas, design of vocational training curricula and provision of vocational trainers for farmers.

4. To establish and develop systems to train manpower in service of labor export in order to earn foreign currencies and create more jobs.

5. To steadily develop education in ethnic minority and disadvantaged regions, striving to reduce educational development gaps between regions by taking such measures as establishing appropriate school and classroom networks in ethnic minority and mountainous regions; strengthening and renovating teacher training schools to improve the quality and efficiency of teacher-training, especially the training of teachers for mountainous and ethnic minority areas; implementing policies on rational financial allocation and support from the central and local State budgets.

6. To mobilize contributions from the whole society and all people for education, diversify education and training forms, expand financial sources and tap all social resources for education development.

7. To implement education on environmental protection and sustainable development in schools. To universally disseminate the knowledge on sustainable development in order to improve people’s knowledge and awareness, serving as a basis for mobilizing all people to participate in sustainable development.

V. Quantitatively developing and qualitatively improving healthcare services, improving working conditions and environmental sanitation

In recent years, the work of people's health care and protection has recorded encouraging achievements. Grassroots medical networks have been strengthened and developed. As a result, primary healthcare has been well provided in many localities, including those in mountainous, deep-lying and remote regions and islands. Active disease and epidemic prevention and combat have been carried out vigorously. Many dangerous epidemics have been controlled and checked such as diarrhea, plague and malaria. Medical examination and treatment systems have been invested and upgraded and, as a result, have actually generated new progress. Many high technologies in diagnosis and treatment have been successfully and widely applied. Mother and child health protection and family planning have seen positive changes. Traditional medical and pharmaceutical systems have been consolidated and developed, playing a positive role in the treatment of common diseases and many other chronic ones at low costs suitable for the poor and the people in rural and mountainous regions.

People's health is increasingly improving. Vietnam has achieved overall healthcare targets, which are much better than other countries with the same per capita average income, and contribute to increasing the country's human development index considerably.

Nevertheless, the following challenges still exist in the healthcare domain:

- Equity is difficult to achieve in healthcare since the market economy is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, while State budget allocations to healthcare remain limited. Policies on medical insurance, hospital charges and medical examination and treatment for the poor have made some initial positive impacts, but also revealed a number of limitations.

- As people's living standards ameliorate, demands for healthcare increase and diversify. Initial investment has been made in high-technology development in the form of private, joint-venture or semi-public healthcare services but still recorded limited results.

- The current disease pattern has the specifics of both a developing country and an industrialized country. Natural calamities and catastrophes are unpredictable challenges and, when occurring, they often cause a lot of human and property losses, including the material bases of the medical sector.

- Subjectively, the medical sector is facing a problem that the qualifications of both professional and managerial staff do not satisfy the requirements of the sector's development in the new context; medical establishments have insufficient and obsolete facilities and equipment; the volume of medicines manufactured by domestic pharmaceutical establishments fail to meet the consumption demand; medicine prices are high due to the absence of the State's medicine management mechanism, leading to low quality and efficiency of people's health care and protection activities.

The objectives of the strategy for people's health care and protection in the 2001-2010 period are as follows: To continuously reduce diseases and improve health, provide all people with primary healthcare services and conditions to access and use quality healthcare services. To enable the entire population to live in a safe community and in a clean environment in order to develop themselves well, physically and intellectually. To reduce morbidity rates, improve physical strength, raise life expectancy and develop the race.

The following priority activities need to be carried out:

1. Satisfying the people's basic healthcare demands:

- To strengthen and consolidate the medical system along the direction of diversifying medical services and socializing the participation, with public health units playing the leading role. To establish systems for providing comprehensive healthcare services, which concentrate on providing basic medical and primary healthcare services. The State ensures increased budget allocations to develop the medical system so that it can meet the above-mentioned demands, especially giving priority to policy beneficiaries, the poor and high-risk groups, and to investment in medicine-manufacturing activities.

- To improve and upgrade physical facilities and working conditions in communal and ward clinics. To train community health workers and medical technicians so that they can well perform the medical treatment and healthcare work and carry out preventive medicine activities.

- To increase investment in upgrading provincial and district medical examination and treatment systems.

- To diversify medical treatment and examination activities in medical establishments of the State and branches as well as foreign-invested, semi-public and private clinics.

- To gradually develop hospitals into centers that provide disease prevention, healthcare and functional rehabilitation services in order to improve the integrability for higher benefits and efficiency in the use of medical resources and services.

- To intensify the combination of healthcare and family planning services and, at the same time, improve the quality of family planning and reproductive healthcare services.

- To develop and universalize medical technology suitable to rural areas in order to satisfy rural people's basic demands for medical treatment and healthcare.

- To provide basic healthcare services, regarding them as an important foundation based on the three-tier medical network for both disease prevention and treatment. To intensify disease prevention and treatment, settle outstanding health problems and promote the functional rehabilitation work.

- To intensify and develop the grassroots medical systems from district hospitals to commune and village clinics, even to households, develop family physicians and train appropriate medical manpower.

- To strengthen and improve the quarantine work, including border medical quarantine. To encourage people to actively participate in preventing social evils, drug addiction and prostitution.

2. Developing preventive medicine, preventing and controlling contagious diseases:

- To formulate plans for monitoring, gathering and treating domestic and hospital wastes, especially hazardous wastes. The implementation of such plans must be supervised by environmental protection agencies.

- To strengthen and enhance activities of monitoring, preventing and controlling contagious diseases. To consolidate and develop the system of stations and units monitoring such contagious diseases as dengue fever, Japanese meningitis, malaria, cholera, etc., developing epidemic surveillance, ensuring measures to effectively prevent and restrain epidemic diffusion and stamp out epidemics.

- To strengthen the prevention and control of non-infectious diseases.

- To maintain and intensify the expanded vaccination.

- To intensify HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities.

- To prevent and control intestinal contagious diseases and diseases transmitted via insects, diseases related to parasites.

- To control risk factors in the environment relating to contagious diseases.

- To intensify preventive medicine, improve people's health:

3. Reducing harms caused to people's health by environmental pollution:

- To step up the formulation and promulgation of policies and legal documents on environmental sanitation, food hygiene and safety; build up and promulgate branch and national environmental standards, consolidate and enhance the existing environmental monitoring systems and work out the overall planning on the national network of environmental observatories.

- To establish mechanisms for combining healthcare with environmental protection.

- To formulate national environmental health orientations.

- To manage and monitor the working environ-ment, prevent and control occupational diseases and occupation-related ones caused by toxic factors and pollution of the working environment.

4. Protecting high-risk groups:

- To step up pregnancy care, providing food and diet guidance, and offer a supplement of anti-anemia ferrite pills to women. To provide mothers with good healthcare combined with education on malnutrition prevention.

- To provide families with good nutritional education and practices. To accelerate socialization in order to mobilize all resources for implementing the program on children malnutrition prevention. To ensure a sufficient supply of vitamin A to infants aged between 6 - 36 months, especially high-risk groups.

- To maintain high rates of vaccination among children against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Part 4

PRIORITY AREAS IN NATURAL RESOURCE USE, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND POLLUTION CONTROL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I. Prevention of soil degradation, efficient and sustainable use of land resources

Soil degradation is a prevalent trend in a large number of areas in Vietnam, especially in hilly and mountainous regions where three-quarters of the land fund is located. The main forms of soil degradation are erosion, wash-out, low fertility, nutritious imbalance, acidification, salinization, alumization, aridity, drainage and desertification, inundation, sweeping floods, land slides and collapse, and contamination.

Over 50% of land (3.2 million hectares) in the deltas and over 60% of land (13 million hectares) in hilly and mountainous regions suffer from problems related to soil degradation. In the delta, challenges to the soil environment are inundation, flooding, acidization, salinization, erosion and collapse of river banks and seashore, soil contamination and exhaustive exploitation of land fertility for short term benefits. In mountainous regions, there are many causes of soil degradation, but the main ones are ethnic people's primitive, backward farming methods, and wanton deforestation and forest burning. Soil degradation entails the degradation of flora and fauna populations, and per- capita agricultural land area tends to decrease at an alarming rate.

To combat soil degradation for efficient and sustainable use of land resources, Vietnam has been implementing proper policies, programs and projects such as signing land and forest assignment contracts with households, afforestation, combined agriculture and forestry, developing perennial trees on slopes, conservation and sustainable use of wetlands, river basin and riverbank belt management, etc. Some international activities to combat soil erosion have been conducted but on a very small scale.

Priority activities to combat soil degradation for efficient and sustainable use of land resources are as follows:

1. Regarding policy and legal aspects:

- To supplement, amend and perfect policies on land ownership and use right, and State management of land. To establish and effectively use land resource information systems.

- To plan and manage the use of land resources by all land users.

- To continue to formulate and promulgate policies and regulations on management of gradient land, river basin land and wetland.

- To better integrate national policies into international action plans for the prevention of degradation and the sustainable use of land.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To regulate population distribution and migration between regions in order to lessen the population pressure on land resources.

- To take suitable measures to ensure food security in mountainous regions, sedentarization, forest protection and development and soil erosion prevention.

- To formulate integrated programs to fertilize or "rejuvenate" agricultural land in populated delta regions.

- To study and apply agricultural, forestry and fishery production chains in different ecological regions with a view to ensuring both socio-economic development and environmental protection benefits.

3. Regarding technical aspects:

- To apply general technical (agronomic, biological, chemical, mechanical etc.) measures and invest in the intensive use of land.

- To facilitate organic circulation in soil. To grow perennial trees of high economic and commercial values while restraining from digging soil, and implement combined agro-forestry-husbandry systems in gradient land.

- To manage watersheds in order to protect soil and water; develop irrigation systems, maintain the ecological balance and regulate reciprocal impacts between deltas and mountainous regions.

- To renew flora coverage with forest trees or agricultural and forestry mix to protect the fertility of soil and sustainable use of hilly land.

4. Regarding awareness:

- To raise community awareness about rational and thrifty use of land resources.

- To conduct training to raise people's knowledge on land use and management technology and techniques.

- To advocate and launch mass movements for application of advanced models of sustainable use of land resources.

II. Protection of the water environment and sustainable use of water resources

Vietnam has relatively abundant surface and groundwater resources. However, rainfall is distributed unevenly among seasons and regions. This causes floodings in the rainy season and drought in the dry season in many areas. Mountainous terrain creates a great potential for hydro-electric power and water reserves, but also increases possibility of flood and soil erosion. Groundwater resources can be extracted on medium and large scales for domestic use in some regions. For international water resources that Vietnam shares with neighboring countries, it is necessary to strengthen international coordination and cooperation in water use and protection for equal and rational benefits among parties.

Vietnam has been very active in formulating policies, laws, programs and projects for water source protection and utilization. However, water resource management still has the following weaknesses:

- There have been no long-term strategies for water resource management on the national and regional scales. Water resources have not yet actually been managed according to basin systems.

- Regulations on protection, use and management of water resources are insufficient or fragmented. There have not been enough suitable management instruments regarding water quality standards, limits on the use of groundwater sources for each region or locality; obligations to make financial contributions to water resource management.

- The investment in irrigation projects remains low, leading to incomplete projects. Irrigation charges are not enough to cover operation management and maintenance costs, resulting in serious degradation of most of projects. Water is poorly managed and water resources are wastefully used. Since the transition to market mechanisms, attention has no longer been given to mobilizing people to construct irrigation facilities. Consequently, irrigation facility construction and use efficiency is at a low level, leading to a waste of water resources.

- Investment in wastewater treatment technology has not been paid due attention.

- There is still a lack of community education programs on rational, thrifty use and protection of water resources.

Due to improper management, use and protection water sources have been degraded and, in many places, seriously contaminated. There is a risk of water sources becoming exhausted in combination with uneven water distribution by time and space; water shortage is threatening economic development and life in some regions. Surface water is increasingly polluted by a great deal of industrial and daily-life waste. Groundwater sources in several urban centers start to be contaminated with organic, hard-to-disintegrate pollutants.

Priority activities need to be carried out in this domain:

1. Regarding policy and legal aspects:

- To continue to formulate policies, legal documents, regulations and technical procedures regarding the water source use, protection and management.

- To enhance the water resource management and monitoring capacity for local administrations at all levels and population communities.

- To mobilize wide participation of water beneficiaries in the process of planning, operating and financing water infrastructure.

- To formulate comprehensive policies and laws on management of national water sources, taking into consideration different water needs such as domestic consumption, agricultural irrigation, aquaculture, hydro power generation, tourism and recreation in order to balance these needs with the benefits of natural water and ecological system management criteria.

- To conduct researches on long-term water use demands and options in order to balance water resources on a national as well as regional scale. To give special attention to master plans on water supply for medium and large urban centers and industrial parks.

- To establish national environmental standards for groundwater, surface water sources like rivers, lakes, reservoirs and other wetland areas.

- To improve the system of water resource State management organizations. To review State management functions of various agencies in order to avoid overlapping and, at the same time, study for establishing a unified and interdisciplinary water resource management apparatus.

- To set up a database in service of water resource management and protection.

- To promote international cooperation in using, managing and protecting water resources shared by Vietnam and its neighboring countries.

2. Economic aspects:

- To formulate and implement programs and projects on integrated management of river basins, upstream areas and groundwater.

- To expand and upgrade irrigation systems at all levels, improve the efficiency of water use and re-use.

- Water must be considered a kind of commodity. To formulate service tariffs on the principle that "water users pay" and "polluters pay."

- To repair rivers and canals and upgrade seriously degraded irrigation systems.

- To encourage natural forest protection and afforestation.

- To integrate natural disaster prevention and control programs into socio-economic development programs in a way suitable to specific conditions of different regions.

3. Regarding technical aspects:

- To step up the application of wastewater treatment technology, encourage the use of clean technology in production in order to reduce waste and reuse wastewater.

4. Regarding awareness:

- To raise community awareness about rational and thrifty use of water and the protection of water resources.

- To encourage the population communities to participate in environmental protection activities and economically use water.

III. Rational exploitation and economical and sustainable use of minerals:

Rationally exploiting and economically and sustainably using natural resources in general and minerals in particular constitutes an indispensable content of the national sustainable development program, which needs to be given special priority, covering activities of rationally exploiting and thriftily and efficiently using minerals, with thrifty use playing the key role.

Compared with other countries in the world and the region, Vietnam has many important advantages in minerals. If this natural resource is well protected, rationally exploited and sustainably used, it will become an advantage in international competition both at present and in the long term.

Minerals constitute a kind of non-renewable resource. At present, over 1,000 big and small mines are operating in the whole country. Due to lax management, the exploitation of small mines has been unplanned and disorderly, resulting in losses of minerals, destruction of the soil environment and floral cover and the occurrence of many environmental incidents such as mine collapse, etc. Particularly, small mines lying scattered in different localities have not yet been managed in an uniform and synchronous manner, thus aggravating the loss of resources and environmental pollution. Besides the waste of resources due to failure to fully collect useful mineral contents, the exploitation by obsolete technology has caused forest loss, land erosion and pollution of rivers, streams and onshore sea.

Natural resources are divided into non-renewable and renewable kinds. Minerals are non-renewable resources. Attention should be paid to the protection as well as thrifty and sustainable use of both of these kinds of natural resources. Appropriate management policies and measures should be applied to each kind but non-renewable resources require more special attention. The existing methods of exploiting, processing and using as well as consuming natural resources still have many inadequacies, being unfriendly to the environment. They have caused bad environmental impacts in many areas across the country, threatening sustainable development, directly affecting production and social life at present and in the future. Therefore, the protection and sustainable use of natural resources in general and minerals in particular must become an important objective in all development strategies, plannings, plans as well as projects in Vietnam.

To achieve the objective of sustainable development, economical and efficient use of minerals, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

1. Regarding policy and legal aspects:

- To use economic and administrative instruments as well as legal remedies for a more determined and efficient enforcement of the Law on Minerals.

- To consolidate the mineral management system at the central level and in localities.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To formulate a unified planning for using mineral resources and environmental protection.

- To organize a rational mining process, to end the situation of exploiting easy mines first while skipping difficult ones, which badly affects the mineral-mining monitoring, evaluation and planning. To limit then soon proceed to prohibit spontaneous and unplanned mining activities.

- For mineral resources in river beds, it is necessary to zone off the mining areas, refrain from causing land slides and flow change.

- To increase investment in restoration, rehabilitation and improvement of the ecological environment in mining areas.

3. Regarding technical aspects:

- To renovate mining, sorting and processing technologies to make full use of mineral resources and protect the environment.

- To apply technologies using low-content ores in order to thoroughly use minerals in mines and at the same time to reduce waste soil and stone, narrowing down waste dumping sites.

- To recover useful substances from waste ore dumping sites for cleaning the environment and saving natural resources.

- To restore resources after exploitation, such as refilling land, growing green trees, restoring floral cover, ecological system, reusing wastes in exploited mines.

4. Regarding awareness:

- To raise community awareness about the rational and thrifty use as well as protection of mineral resources.

- To encourage population communities to participate in protecting mineral mines, especially scattered, small ones, and minerals which are economically sensitive and easy to pollute the environment.

IV. Protection of marine, coastal and island environments and development of marine resources

Vietnam has more than 3,300 km of coastline. Vietnam's exclusive economic zone is about 1 million km2, three times its land territory. Coastal regions are centers of social and economic activity. Here exist nearly 60% of the country's population, about 50% of large and important cities and most of the country's major industrial zones.

Vietnam has implemented a number of policies and measures to protect the marine environment. The promulgated Law on Petroleum, the Maritime Code and the to be-promulgated Law on Fisheries all pay attention to the long-term protection of marine resources as well as the marine environment. A number of coastal cities have built and will build waste and wastewater treatment works. Some integrated coastal management projects have been implemented.

Nevertheless, there remain a lot of obstacles to the protection of the marine environment:

- The biggest of which is the lack of investment capital for technical infrastructure projects and activities of preventing adverse impacts of environmental pollution.

- The fisheries industry is one of the important economic sectors in Vietnam, employing nearly 9 million people and ranking third in export foreign-currency revenues. There is great potential for fishery development in Vietnam if the fishery industry is managed and governed towards sustainable development. Aquaculture development has been proved an important and effective direction for hunger eradication and poverty reduction, job creation and income raising for the population communities. However, at present, the fishery industry's development still faces numerous constraints in management, rational use of resources and environmental protection, level of technology application, investment capital and production and trading organization.

- Coastal areas are badly hit by natural disasters like storms, floods and erosion.

- Population pressure and the high speed of urbanization, industrialization in coastal areas have caused serious consequences to coastal and marine resources. Coastal cities and industrial parks discharge an amount of untreated wastewater and solid waste into rivers and seas, polluting the water environment. Particularly, tourist resorts along the coastline are major sources of wastewater and garbage discharged into the sea. River and sea ports and the oil and gas exploitation industry, environmental incidents such as oil spills, shipwrecks, etc. and natural disasters, which occur frequently, are also factors that cause environmental pollution and degradation of the marine environment.

Consequently, the marine and on-shore ecological system is seriously degraded: Bio-diversity is threatened and degraded; very large areas of mangrove forests are destroyed for shrimp raising; onshore coral reefs are destructively exploited, putting Vietnam into the list of the highest endangered regions in the world. Many valuable and rare animal groups like marine animals, sea turtles, sea birds, etc. as well as onshore and underwater floral covers such as coral reefs and sea grass have gradually shrunk. The quality of living environments in various ecological systems have deteriorated and changed for the worse; species diversity and special gene sources have been lost or seriously degraded in some areas.

Priority activities which need to be carried out in this domain are as follows:

1. Regarding policy and legal aspects:

- To formulate a strategy for marine economic development, marine resource and environment management according to the principle of sustainable development. This strategy includes functional zoning of the sea and coastal areas; integrated management of coastal fishery exploitation and rearing; establishment of a system of protected coastal and marine areas; planning of coastal population and urban development; diversification of trades and improvement of the life of coastal inhabitants; prevention and reduction of the harms of coastal disasters, primarily storm, flooding, bank erosion, tidal waves; capacity building for coastal and marine environment management; and prevention of, and response to, marine environmental accidents.

- To establish a multi-branch mechanism for the unified management of sea and coastal areas. It is necessary to renovate methods of formulating development and management plannings and plans mainly aiming at obtaining a certain branch's economic interests while paying little attention to the protection of natural resources and the environment. It is necessary to introduce sanctions to force the integration of issues of natural resource and environmental protection into branches' economic development plans and plannings. For the immediate future, the oil and gas exploitation, waterway transport, fishery, forestry and tourism industries need to have coordinative programs for joint rational exploitation and protection of coastal and marine resources and environment.

- To gradually proceed to the contracting and assignment of sea water surface use rights within the permitted scope to producers for facilitating the promotion of marine-culture.

- To join in and formulate plans for implementing international and regional treaties and action programs on fishery, using and protecting fishery resources in a sustainable manner as well as protecting marine bio-diversity.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To develop offshore fishing and reasonably adjusting coastal fishing.

- To strongly develop aquaculture in brackish water and onshore salty water along the direction of harmony with the environment and at the same time, develop and apply post-harvest technology to rational and thrifty use of fishery products, secure food safety and increase foreign currencies earned from export.

- To develop the fishery logistics system, including fish ports, ship building and repair, fishing gears and nets, provision of services, product preservation, processing and selling. To attach great importance to communication, rescue and salvage services provided to fishermen and fishing fleets.

- To develop and diversify trades in order to create more jobs, eradicate hunger and reduce poverty and raise living standards for coastal communities, which help better the coastal and marine natural resource and environment protection.

3. Regarding environmental aspects:

- To establish and efficiently manage marine and coastal conservation zones.

- To strongly promote the application of branch and national environmental standards.

- To strongly promote research and application of marine environmental and onshore protection technology and technology for coping with marine environmental accidents (oil spill, shipwreck, salinity intrusion, etc.).

V. Forest protection and development

Forests in Vietnam are typically tropical rainforests, which are abundant in flora and fauna of high biomass and bio-diversity values. In the last years of the 20th century, policies and measures for forest protection and afforestation have brought about positive results. Forest coverage has increased from 27% in 1991 to 33.2% in 2000.

Nevertheless, forests in Vietnam are still under great pressure from the following:

- Protracted wars have destroyed a number of forest ecological systems.

- Demands for firewood and timber for the market and daily life, together with the huge profits that can be made from illegal logging, have led to wanton and exhaustive exploitation, disregarding bio-forest principles and have caused losses to forest resources, especially old jungles and watershed forests.

- Nomadic lifestyles, slash-and-burn farming practices, and the high competitiveness of agricultural production over forest preservation have caused forest areas to shrink and forest quality degrade. In coastal regions, the destruction of mangrove forests to make way for shrimp farming has also increased.

- Forest fires are frequent, devastating tens of thousands of hectares every year.

- Logging and timber processing technology is backward and timber use is barely efficient. On the other hand, non-timber alternative product-processing technology has not yet satisfied consumers' demands. Therefore, forests continue to be cut down or exploited.

Hence, even though forest area has increased, it fails to meet the requirements of environmental protection.

The strategic objective is to stabilize forest funds, including 3 million hectares of special-use forests, 6 million hectares of protective forests and 10 million hectares of production forests.

Priority activities which need to be carried out in this domain are as follows:

1. Regarding institutional and legal aspects:

- To strengthen State management systems for guiding sustainable use and protection of forest resources, combined with active community participation.

- To further the land assignment and forest contracting to households and collectives pursuant to the Land Law and Law on Forest Protection and Development.

- To formulate, promulgate and implement policies and laws that attract investment in forest development and protection.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To assist people in planting and protecting forests, effectively using the forest land assigned. To encourage life improvement through community-based sustainable use and management of forests. To sign forest protection contracts with each individual, household, community group to ensure that management and protection work is suitable to protective forests.

- To formulate and issue guidelines on land use tax relief, provision of loans with preferential interest rates to assist investment in setting up farms; promulgate policies for management of buffer zones and centers of protected forests together with relevant implementation instructions. To implement appropriate profit-sharing policies in forest protection in order to encourage local people to participate in forest management and protection.

- To promote ecological agricultural-forestry development, agro-forestry farms of different types, and enhance services for agricultural expansion.

- To encourage the sustainable use of non-timber forest products. To develop industries that produce timber substitution materials.

- To strongly implement projects on growing medicinal plants.

3. Regarding technical and technological aspects:

- To study and apply new technical and technological advances in forestry production.

- To encourage the growing of indigenous plant varieties in all forestation and reforestation activities.

- To apply modern logging and timber processing technology which is highly efficient in the use of forest resources.

- To encourage the use of firewood substitute fuel such as coal, gas and small-scale hydro power, etc. To study and assess options for firewood substitute fuels and propose effective use of solar energy, wind energy, natural gas or hydro power.

- To conduct research and apply technical measures to preventing and controlling forest fires and environmental disasters related to forest loss.

VI. Air pollution reduction in urban centers and industrial parks

Vietnam is still a underdeveloped country in terms of industry; and urban populations, especially in big cities, remain not large. Air in rural areas is basically unpolluted. However, there have been alarming signs of air pollution in industrial parks and urban centers.

Current air pollutants include dust and emissions from industrial production, transportation, construction activities, and cooking in people's daily life. The industries that cause the most air-pollution are thermal power generation, cement production, brick, tile and lime manufacturing and the metallurgical, chemical and mining industries. Due to backward production technologies and the absence of dust and emitted gas treating facilities, these industries are exerting adverse impacts on the surrounding environment.

Dust pollutants in the air within industrial parks are often between one and a half to three times higher than the allowed standards. The level of toxic air (SO2, NO2, CO) in most urban centers and industrial parks is still below the allowed standards, i.e. there has not been pollution of these kinds of toxic air. However, in a number of factories, and at the major road junctions of urban centers, the level of toxic air of the above-mentioned kinds is many times higher than the allowed standard. While it is at an insignificant level in a large number of areas, air pollution within production establishments (working environment pollution) is a big concern. Recent observations have shown that there are some signs of acid rain in both the north and the south of the country.

Priority activities which need to be carried out in this domain are as follows:

1. Regarding institutional and legal aspects:

- Environmental impact assessment must be conducted on all socio-economic development projects in order to actively prevent possible causes of air pollution. Formulation and appraisal of environmental impact assessment reports must be examined regularly and strictly by competent agencies. Past the prescribed time limit, applications for extension or re-grant must be made.

- To thoroughly assess and work out plans on closely controlling pollution caused by industrial production establishments, transport means and domestic fuel-using appliances. To force those enterprises which seriously pollute the environment to fully address the pollution.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To raise the efficiency of energy use, of power generation by thermal power plants and of power consumption by electric equipment. To develop the thermal power industry that use liquefied gas and refined oil in replacement of coal and crude oil, which contains high level of sulfur.

- To encourage the use of clean energy or various sources. To universalize the use of biogas for cooking in rural areas.

- To develop forests to cover barren hills, grow trees within urban centers and along roads.

- To strongly promote development of mass transit in medium and large urban centers.

- To apply the principle "polluters pay" to enterprises which cause air pollution.

3. Regarding scientific and technological aspects:

- To encourage the use of clean materials and technology in production establishments.

- To strictly prohibit import of backward technology and rapidly reduce the use of obsolete equipment which cause serious pollution.

4. Regarding awareness raising:

To conduct propagation, education and step up training to raise awareness about protection of the environment in general and of the working environment in particular for business owners, trade unions and workers.

VII. Management of solid waste and hazardous waste

In rural areas, waste from agricultural production, forestry activities and traditional fisheries (such as tree bark, leaves, rice straws, seed husks, animal manure, etc.) is mostly used as a source of fuel, fertilizer or is buried. However, the waste of industrial origin such as plastic, metal, surplus long-lasting chemicals is rapidly increasing, though not yet becoming an urgent problem. Garbage problems have started appearing in populated areas.

In urban centers and industrial parks, the collection and treatment of solid wastes discharged from industrial and daily-life activities and hazardous wastes have become urgent environmental problems. The solid waste collection capacity in urban centers and industrial parks in Vietnam can meet only 20-40% of its requirements, this rate can be as much as 50-80% in big cities. Garbage is not classified at its source but mixed garbage is collected and transported to dumping sites. The collection and separation of recyclable waste is done entirely by poor rubbish collectors. The application of technologies of recycling solid wastes for re-use is still very limited, unorganized and unplanned. Garbage-recycling establishments are small in scale and using backward technology which causes pollution. Only a minimal volume of garbage (1.5-5% of total volume) is made by hygienic technology into micro-organic fertilizer and humus.

Currently, burial is the major method of waste treatment. However, none of the solid waste-burying sites meets technical environmental requirements. These sites are seriously contaminating soil, water and air.

Solid wastes from out-of-date industrial parks are currently collected and treated together with urban daily-life garbage. Only 50-60% of total hazardous waste (including hospital waste) is collected.

Solid waste management is still faced with many weaknesses:

- There has not been a clear assignment of responsibilities between different branches.

- Mechanisms for the waste collection service provision and waste management are still heavily subsidized.

- Waste is mainly collected manually. There has not been a wide participation from the communities and private sector in waste collection and management. Although there have been some successful models in which the private sector and communities organize the collection and treatment of urban garbage, their service is a long way qualitatively and quantitatively from meeting the requirements of sustainable development due to limited investment.

- There is a lack of appropriate and long-term investment in facilities for waste collection, transportation and separation, in the construction of burial sites up to standards and in waste treatment technologies.

- There is also a lack of modern technologies and facilities as well as investment capital for recycling collected wastes and there is a lack of funding as well as technologies appropriate for the treatment of hazardous wastes.

- Community awareness about environmental protection and health safety related to waste collection, treatment and management is still low.

Priority activities which need to be carried out in this domain are as follows:

1. Regarding institutional and legal aspects:

- To formulate and promulgate pollution control plans at the national, branch or local levels to actively prevent, preclude, treat, remedy, then control the environmental pollution caused by solid, liquid and gaseous wastes, hazardous wastes.

- To well materialize the contents of Vietnam's strategy on management of solid wastes in urban centers and industrial parks up to 2020 and the Regulation on management of hazardous wastes already signed and promulgated by the Prime Minister.

- To conduct studies to identify mechanisms to increase the recovery of costs for solid waste and hazardous waste collection, treatment and destruction.

2. Regarding economic aspects:

- To construct hygienic waste-burying sites in medium and large cities.

- To step up the application of technologies to recycling waste for reuse. To encourage the separation of wastes from their sources in service of the recycling technology, contributing to reducing the area of dumping sites and costly treatment systems.

- To encourage the private sector to set up joint-stock, private companies, cooperatives to participate in the collection and treatment of solid wastes.

- To accelerate the installation of incineration facilities in hospitals, first of all in those which cure contagious diseases.

3. Regarding technological aspects:

- To reduce solid wastes from their sources by encouraging the application of cleaner and environmentally friendly technological production processes.

- To encourage production establishments to use advanced technologies which consume less raw materials, fuel and materials; reduce product-packaging materials which cause a waste of resources; change people's consuming habits along the direction of practicing thriftiness and discharging less waste into the environment.

- To encourage the application of technologies of recycling wastes into micro-biological fertilizer, thus creating humus in service of production and reducing waste-burying acreage.

4. Regarding awareness raising:

- To carry out community education and awareness raising campaigns; encourage people to participate in the collection, treatment and management of waste in their communities in big and medium cities, contributing to ending the rash dumping of garbage, especially hazardous waste, in streets.

- To build up mass movements for waste separation at home, keeping the living environment hygienic; and thrifty use of resources and products.

VIII. Protection of bio-diversity

Vietnam is located in the tropical region and is regarded as one of the top ten centers in the world in terms of bio-diversity. Vietnam's bio-diversity is demonstrated in the abundant numbers of plant and animal species with some very special and new ones to the world, including big animals discovered recently; the diversity of gene sources as well as various landscapes and typical ecosystems.

The Government of Vietnam has adopted policies on conservation of bio-diversity. Since 1958 over 60 legal documents have been promulgated. On November 16, 1994, the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ratified the accession to the Bio-diversity Convention and Vietnam now is a member of this Convention. Despite all the above-mentioned efforts, bio-diversity in Vietnam is experiencing reduction and degradation due to the four following major reasons:

- The reduction and disappearance of habitats due to human beings' activities such as deforestation, a shift in the methods of land use, destructive exploitation of animal species, not to mention other factors such as forest fires, earthquakes, storms and floods, epidemics, etc.

- The overexploitation of plant and animal resources due to population pressure and poverty.

- Environmental pollution which is destroying some eco-systems on land, in water and underground.

- Biological contamination due to the uncontrolled import of exotic species which have exerted negative impacts on indigenous species.

Vietnam's action plan for bio-diversity protection was signed and promulgated on December 22, 1995 by the Prime Minister together with Decision No. 845/TTg. This document has a high legal effect and serves as a lodestar for Vietnam's bio-diversity actions at all levels, in all branches, localities and mass organizations from the central to grassroots level.

The long-term objectives of Vietnam's action plan for bio-diversity protection are to protect the diversity, abundance and specialties of Vietnam's living creatures within the framework of sustainable development, including:

- To protect special eco-systems of Vietnam and vulnerable eco-systems which are in danger of reduction or destruction by human beings' economic development activities.

- To protect components of bio-diversity, which are being threatened by overexploitation or ignored.

- To promote and discover the use values of all components of bio-diversity based on rational exploitation, thrifty use and sustainable development of the values of natural resources to serve the country's socio-economic development objectives.

Priority activities which need to be carried out in this domain are as follows:

1. To improve policies and laws related to bio-diversity conservation.

2. To regularly review, supplement and readjust the national bio-diversity action plan to align it with socio-economic development strategies and plans.

3. To formulate bio-diversity action plans for all regions.

4. To intensify communication and education activities to raise people's awareness about bio-diversity conservation.

5. To consolidate systems for management of national parks and nature reserves, and at the same time strongly decentralize management. To proceed with the construction of a nature museum system from the central to grassroots level serving scientific research, knowledge popularization, visits, learning, propagation and education on the natural development history and bio-diversity conservation.

6. To strongly promote bio-diversity inventory; establish national animal and plant resource database; formulate, promulgate and widely disseminate Vietnam's red books of precious and rare varieties and species to enforce strict conservation policies.

7. To provide training in bio-diversity conservation for forest and conservation zone managers, scientists and related subjects.

8. To conduct scientific research and technological applications to sustainable exploitation and use of bio-diversity values, especially in agriculture, forestry, fishery and health. To encourage the studies and application of indigenous knowledge in bio-diversity use and conservation.

9. To develop and experiment some eco-tourism projects.

10. To encourage communities to establish and observe common regulations on bio-diversity protection in local areas.

11. To enhance international and regional cooperation in bio-diversity protection.

IX. Implementing measures to mitigate climate change, limit negative impacts on climate change and prevent and control natural disasters

Global and regional climate change is caused by human beings' activities and will have negative impacts on various domains of socio-economic development and environmental protection.

Priority activities which need to be carried out in this domain are as follows:

1. To actively propagate, educate, popularize and improve people's awareness to effectively implement the national program on elimination of agents causing ozone layer degradation and the national action plan in implementation of the United Nations' Framework Treaty on Climate Change.

2. To strengthen and improve the capacity of hydrography, especially in the fields of baseline surveys, observations and forecasts to ensure more complete and accurate assessment of climate resources and related environmental issues.

3. To improve the quality of hydrography to meet the requirements of socio-economic development and environmental protection, first of all effectively for preventing and controlling natural disasters. To increase investment in research for producing long-term forecasts with higher reliability.

Part 5

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IMPLEMENTATION ORGANIZATION

I. Improving the leading role of the State in the organization of implementation of sustainable development

1. Institutional development:

So far, Vietnam has recorded a number of satisfactory achievements in building the legal and institutional frameworks relating to socio-economic development and environmental protection, including:

- A synchronous system of State management agencies in charge of socio-economic development and environmental protection has been established from the central to local level, with clear functions, tasks and organizational structures, which are effectively operating.

Important policies and legal documents related to planning, managing development in the economic, social and environmental protection domains have been issued.

Though the system of State management agencies in charge of environment has been established at the central and provincial levels, these agencies still have limited capability, especially at the provincial level, and have not met the requirements of dealing with sustainable development issues in their localities. The coordination among the agencies involved in environmental protection has not been very proper, and information has not been quickly updated to meet the need for adjustment of policies and plans within the environmental branch itself as well as other economic and social branches. There is still a considerable shortage of sub-law documents and implementation guidance. There have been particularly no economic measures and tools to promote environmental protection efforts and deal with environmental violations. The strategy and action plans on environment were formulated rather separately from those of socio-economic branches or there was a poor participation of concerned parties as well as the population communities, which has led to their limited feasibility.

To ensure the successful materialization of the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam, the following three major issues need to be addressed:

- Completing the system of policies and legal documents on sustainable development by adjusting, amending and supplementing the existing documents in order to perfect the institutional system for sustainable development, which is compatible with international laws. Attaching importance to institutions on the integration of environmental issues into socio-economic development strategies; encouraging the coordination for the formulation and realization of plans for sustainable development at the national and regional levels. Encouraging scientific researches in service of making plans for sustainable development.

- Developing a sustainable development mechanism to operate as a bridge between ministries, branches and localities, linking environmental issues with economic and social issues when making development decisions. For this mechanism to operate effectively, importance should be attached to:

+ Assigning tasks and decentralizing powers as much as possible to lower levels in the process of making, implementing, and monitoring the implementation of, the development plans; mobilizing the maximum participation of related communities.

+ Organically linking strategies, plannings and action plans on environment with socio-economic development strategies, plannings and plans right from the formulation stage and throughout the process of implementation, with the participation of all functional agencies within the State apparatus.

+ Implementing the sustainable development mechanism by applying the compulsory environmental impact assessment procedures right from the stage of designing, planning, and formulating socio-economic development plans of the whole country, branches and regions.

- Establishing the Inter-Branch Steering Council for Sustainable Development, headed by the Planning and Investment Minister (having its standing body placed at the Planning and Investment Ministry), assisting the Prime Minister in directing the uniform sustainable development nationwide. The Council will have the following major functions and tasks:

+ Organizing, guiding and steering the process of realizing the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam. Synthesizing the implementation situation and annually reporting the results of the implementation of the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam to the Prime Minister.

+ Coordinating inter-branch and inter-regional development-planning activities; implementing big programs and projects of highly inter-branch and inter-regional nature. Supporting ministries, branches, localities, enterprises and concerned organizations to formulate sustainable development strategies, programs and projects.

+ Guiding the work of sustainable development propaganda, education and awareness raising for all levels, branches and people of all strata. Directing human resource training in service of realizing the sustainable development +

+ Establishing and operating a system providing information on the country's sustainable development issues.

+ Proposing new initiatives and seeking resources for implementing such initiatives to promote sustainable development.

- Setting up the Steering Councils for Sustainable Development at the branch and local levels.

2. Enhancing the capacity for sustainable development management:

Compared with the system of State management over socio-economic issues, the system of State management over environment in particular and sustainable development in general is newly established and its capacity has not yet met the requirements of sustainable development.

Enhancing the capacity of State management agencies in charge of environment at all levels is one of the key tasks aiming to successfully realize the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam. This task includes the following contents:

- To provide training to raise the professional qualifications and skills for organizations and staff involved in environmental management at all levels.

- To establish environmental management units in ministries and branches, which will perform the environmental management function in their respective domains.

- To enhance the capacity of environmental research institutions and observatories.

- To strengthen the environmental information systems at the national, branch and local levels.

- To develop an economic cost-accounting system; using economic tools to promote environmental protection.

3. Using financial tools for sustainable development:

- The State budget for environmental protection mainly lies in development investment sources for capital construction to enhance the capacity of environmental protection activities, for conducting urgent baseline environmental surveys and carrying out overall environmental planning schemes; partly lies in non-business economic and scientific sources and the development of master plans. Economic sources will be allocated for regular activities on environmental protection, environmental scientific research, implementing environmental improvement and protection programs and projects, education and propagation to raise community awareness about the environment.

- To encourage financial organizations to provide financial assistance for national sustainable development.

- To mobilize enterprises to invest resources in protecting the environment, landscapes, historical and cultural relics, the eco-system as well as bio-diversity in and around their operation areas; pay different kinds of charges for waste water, emitted gases, solid waste collection and treatment, and other related charges and fees; make contributions to, and provide financial supports for, environmental protection funds at all levels.

- To encourage organizations and individuals to provide financial supports for the implementation of regulations on environmental protection, pollution prevention and remedy, creating a clean and green living environment in the workplace and at home.

- To attract foreign direct investment projects in the environmental protection industry.

- To attach importance to calling official development assistance (ODA) for projects on environmental protection, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, job generation, construction of social infrastructure in rural, mountainous, remote, deep-lying and ethnic minority areas.

4. Formulating systems of sustainable development evaluation indicators:

The formulation and application of the system of sustainable development evaluation indicators shall be accelerated. This system must be formulated and put into operation soon. It will be adjusted, amended and supplemented while in use.

The system of evaluation indicators and norms for technology and quality of goods, import and export materials and raw materials must be consistent; the evaluation mechanism must be suitable so as not to cause troubles to production, business and service establishments.

5. Enhancing education and raising awareness of sustainable development for all people:

One of the most important tasks is to enhance education and raise awareness about sustainable development for all people, communities, enterprises, organizations and State agencies at all levels. Attention should be given to four following target groups:

- Policy advisors and makers who play a decisive role in proposing development strategies, programs and projects. Their knowledge on sustainable development issues will have a direct and extremely strong impact on the prospect of sustainable development of the country and each locality.

- Experts whose work is related to survey, assessment, information supply, development option and project formulation, natural resource and environmental protection. They need to be trained intensively and regularly update their knowledge in order to have an active role in recommending sustainable development measures.

- The business circle whose production, business and service activities have direct and significant impacts on economic development, living environment, labor and employment.

- Young generation, youths and teenagers, who are the master of the society in the future. They need to be equipped and continually updated with deep and broad knowledge on sustainable development.

6. Formulating branches' and localities' oriented strategies for sustainable development

Each branch and locality (province or centrally-run city) needs to formulate its own oriented strategy for sustainable development to confirm its specific activities to advance towards sustainable development on the basis of reference to major orientations of the national socio-economic development strategy and the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam.

II. Mobilizing the entire population to participate in sustainable development

1. Overall undertaking:

Sustainable development is all people's cause. The process of making and implementing development policies must be participated by all people on the principle of "people know, people discuss, people do and people examine."

Socio-political, socio-professional organiza-tions, mass organizations in our country are widely developed, well organized and experienced in unifying and mobilizing the public. Each social group has its own organization and through such organization separate activities of individual members are coordinated into broad movements.

There are many ways to mobilize wide participation by people in sustainable development.

a/ Further renewing laws and institutions for bringing into fuller play the people's initiatives and mastery in social and community management. Enhancing community participation in environmental impact consideration and assessment by institutionalizing the participatory role of the masses and taking measures to force the performance of this work, primarily by large projects that have deep and wide impacts on population. Socio-political organizations, socio-professional organizations and mass organizations play a very important role in ensuring sustainability in socio-economic development and environmental protection in each locality. It is necessary to enhance the responsibility and capacity of the above-said organizations so that they can effectively bring into play this role.

b/ Organizing propagation, education, and raising of people’s awareness about sustainable development via mass organizations and community activities. Various forms of community education on natural resource and environmental protection via formulation of village codes, knowledge quizzes and movement activities should be further brought into full play.

c/ Launching mass movements in each social group, in each locality and nationwide with the sustainable development contents. Continuing developing mass movements and community activities to create more jobs, to share business and hunger eradication and poverty reduction experiences, keep the living environment sanitary, protect resources and the environment in their localities, and improve people's awareness about sustainable development. Establishing local groups responsible for environmental protection and natural resource use self-management and monitoring.

d/ Administrations at all levels need to coordinate with, provide support and create all conditions for, socio-political organizations, socio-professional organizations and mass organizations as well as population communities to realize the objectives of the movements for sustainable development.

e/ Building up typical models on sustainable development communities, natural resource and environmental protection self-management system and widely spread those models.

2. Activities of main social groups for accelerating sustainable development:

a/ Women:

Despite its achievements made in promoting the advancement of women, Vietnam needs to do more in order to achieve gender equity, improve living and working conditions, raising the political and social status of women, completely eliminate all violations of women's basic rights. Women are now still more disadvantaged than men in learning opportunities, professional training and qualification raising, employment and housework.

The following priority activities need to be carried out to help women contribute more to sustainable development:

- To intensify education, training and propagation to raise awareness in all aspects of professional qualifications, economic and social management and environmental protection capacity for women.

- To support women in business activities, employment, hunger eradication and poverty reduction by:

+ Mobilizing capital and establishing credit funds for poor women.

+ Enhancing agricultural, forestry promotion and off-farm job training for women.

+ Setting up cooperation groups for women to create jobs and provide mutual support in business.

+ Initiating movements to select models of appropriate consumption, natural resource wastefulness combat, and environmental pollution reduction.

- To provide healthcare for women and children, improve living conditions in localities by:

+ Well carrying out family planning policies.

+ Creating movements to combat child malnutrition, to improve nutritious diets for families and to protect mothers' health.

+ Launching movements on well rearing kids and building up happy families.

+ Extending movements on supply and use of clean water, rural environmental sanitation and accelerated construction of sanitary works in households.

+ Launching movements on cleaning villages or streets, separating garbage at home.

+ Going ahead in the movements on prevention of, and fight against, diseases, epidemics, and social evils such as prostitution and drug addition.

- To participate in formulating, and monitoring the implementation of, policies and laws on gender equity.

- To participate in the protection and development of local natural resources:

+ Launching movements on saving fuels and energy, and using clean energy in domestic activities.

+ Launching the movement on "women going ahead in practicing the economical and rational consumption and pattern and combating wastefulness."

+ Building up models of natural resource management and environmental protection by women in communities.

b/ Youths and teenagers:

Vietnam's youths and teenagers are not only generations that are masters of the future, but also the pioneering force in the construction of the present country, making a very important contribution to the successful realization of sustainable development.

However, youths and teenagers are still facing the following challenges:

- Due to a rapid population growth and a less-developed economy, opportunities to seek jobs suitable to their capabilities are quite limited.

- Due to low living standards, young households can hardly save capital. As a result, young people can hardly have the necessary resources for economic development at the start of their independent life and career.

- Compared to their counterparts of the same age group in other areas, youths and teenagers who live in remote, difficult-to-access and geographically isolated areas, who are of some ethnic groups and isolated due to language barriers, and who come from poor families and are isolated due to economic hardship and social status, have less opportunities to learn, access to information, have exchanges and develop themselves in a comprehensive manner.

Schools, State agencies and local administrations are forces that directly manage, guide and organize youths and teenagers to take part in social activities. In addition, the mass organizations that represent youths and teenagers have attracted a majority of youths and teenagers into common, voluntary work, focusing on public-utility activities such as helping the poor, maintaining order and security within population quarters, joining in the shock force to prevent and combat disasters and promote a civilized lifestyle and keep the environment green, clean and beautiful, etc. These activities have had great impacts on the society in terms of not only economic development and environmental protection but, more importantly, social, cultural and spiritual development, contributing to the education of fine moral values, qualities and traditional habits of the Vietnamese people.

The State, together with youth and teenager organizations, should further spiritually encourage and physically support youths and teenagers and well organize their participation in sustainable development movements, such as:

- To mobilize youths and teenagers to participate more actively in the process of making national socio-economic development and environmental protection policies, especially those directly related to their benefits and to the long future of the posterity.

- To develop more preferential policies to encourage youths to go and work in remote areas where their knowledge and labor are needed.

- To create more opportunities for education, vocational training and all-sided ability development for youths and teenagers through mechanisms to provide bigger material supports for education and training.

- To support the young to create more jobs by themselves with preferential policies on land use rights, soft loans, tax reduction and/or exemption, technical and management instructions, seeking of outlets, etc.

- To draw experiences from, and provide financial supports for further spreading, the movement of youths and young intellectuals volunteering to go to build and render help in poor and particularly difficult areas.

- To multiply models of successful youth businesses and projects owned by youths, young entrepreneurs, particularly projects that require a long-term association between the implementers' benefits and work results such as forestation, reclamation of new land, and natural resource and environmental protection.

c/ Farmers:

Farmers account for more than 70% of the whole population and labor force. The socio-political organization representing farmers is Vietnam Peasants' Association. It has its grassroots organizations in all localities, conducting propaganda among farmers and launching action movements in rural areas.

As compared to the requirements of modernization, industrialization and sustainable development, farmers in our country still have weaknesses in many aspects:

- Although farmers' educational and vocational level is better than previously, it is still low in general. Their awareness of sustainable development and economic as well as technical knowledge for implementing sustainable development is still limited.

- Farmers' production level is generally low in terms of scope, farming techniques, productivity, quality of agricultural products and business efficiency. There have been many obstacles between production, processing and trading; prices fluctuate, and production is not stable. Natural disasters frequently hit many rural areas, causing serious consequences to the economy and people's lives.

- Farmers' life still has a lot of difficulties. Poor households are mainly concentrated in rural areas.

In general, in most rural communities, development has not yet been sustainable. To overcome the above-mentioned limitations and further bring into full play the role of farmers in the renewal period, actively contributing to the sustainable development of the country, the following activities need to be well carried out:

+ To improve farmers' intellectual level, providing them with vocational training, and technical, economic and social knowledge.

+ To well implement policies on land, comprehensive agricultural development, agricultural product processing and consumption, production insurance and social insurance.

+ To fully utilize the natural, economic and social advantages of each region, rendering help to disadvantaged regions so that the development levels and people's living standards in urban and rural areas are not too far from each other, proceeding to narrowing this gap.

+ To distribute the population according to planning's, strongly step up the development of vocations, create jobs, eradicate hunger and reduce poverty, improve living standards and build up new-style rural areas.

+ To encourage farmers to actively take part in protecting the agricultural environment by strictly observing regulations on the use of insecticides and fertilizers, preserve the aquaculture environment, and apply new techniques for producing clean agricultural products.

+ To develop, widely popularize and apply successful household economy models after the eco-system of VAC (garden-pond-sty) or VACR (garden-pond-sty-forest).

+ To launch movements for building sustainable rural communities to mutually assist one another in economic development, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, bring into full play the democratic spirit, step up cultural and social activities, and for efficiently self-managing local natural resources and protecting the environment.

d/ Workers and trade unions:

At the current stage when our country's industry is still small, the working class, though accounting for a small proportion in the whole population and labor force, is holding a large quantity of material foundations and the most modern equipment in society, annually producing industrial products which make up 40% of gross social products and ensure over 60% of the State budget.

From the perspective of their role in sustainable development, on the one hand, workers are the ones who have to bear the vigorous impacts of fast economic growth, which force them to move houses, change jobs and skills to adapt to new requirements of the industrialization and modernization process; and enjoy benefits from the industrialization process, namely better jobs, higher salaries and living standards. At the same time, they have to suffer from adverse impacts of such process, such as polluted living and working conditions, problems in housing, public-utility services, traffic, etc. On the other hand, workers are also producers, who directly exploit natural resources, and hence, cause pollution. They play a direct role in either the protection or destruction of the environment. With this role, they bear joint responsibility for impacts caused by production activities on the natural environment. However, they do not play a decisive role, since it is the enterprise owners and managers who decide on investment options and production technology.

Workers are represented by the trade unions which organize and mobilize workers to take part in activities for sustainable development. Vietnam General Confederation of Labor has the official voice in forming important national development policies. Trade unions at various levels directly participate in the process of making development decisions, especially those relating to jobs, wages and the working conditions of workers in localities and enterprises.

With such roles and functions, workers and trade unions should carry out the following activities to enhance sustainable development:

- To give comments and opinions on national development policies. To actively take part in discussing and drafting State strategies, plannings and plans on socio-economic development and environmental protection.

- To organize propagation and education to improve workers' awareness about sustainable development. To play a leading role in the application of clean production technology and sanitation of their working environment.

- To force employers to strictly observe regulations on environmental sanitation and fight against acts of violation.

- To force employers to strictly observe regulations on labor contracts, labor safety and sanitation, ensuring health for laborers as well as the whole business community, reducing labor accidents, preventing occupational diseases and working environment incidents.

e/ Businessmen:

National economic growth and development depend greatly on the development of the system of enterprises. By applying clean production technology, thriftily using fuels, raw materials and materials in the production process, producing environmentally friendly products, enterprises can make very important contributions to sustainable development.

The Association of Businessmen is an organization which represents the interests of businesses and attracts businessmen to participate in political, social and environmental protection activities. It is responsible for instructing businesses to strictly observe law provisions, including the Law on Environmental Protection.

Priority activities which need to be carried out by businessmen for advancing towards sustainable development are as follows:

- To apply cleaner production and environmentally friendly technology.

- To raise enterprises' responsibility in the thrifty use of natural resources and environmental protection, taking initiative in preventing, controlling and remedying environmental pollution.

- To contribute resources to natural resource use, management and environmental protection, supporting socio-economic development aimed at sustainable development in the areas where the enterprises are located and in the whole society.

g/ Ethnic minorities:

Vietnam has 54 fraternal nationalities. The Communist Party and the Government of Vietnam consistently pursue policies to consoli-date solidarity and mutual assistance, to focus on hunger eradication and poverty reduction, eliminate backwardness and disparity in all aspects among regions and nationalities, striving for prosperous people, a strong country with an equitable, democratic and civilized society.

Due to historical reasons, the development of all nationalities has not been even. Living standards in many ethnic minority areas are very low and backward and this is a great challenge to development. Although mountainous land has been more actively used for economic purposes, the efficiency of land use is not high. Nearly half of the 25 million ha of gradient land are of poor quality with thin surface soil, which is substantially eroded and is now experiencing serious degradation. The very high population growth rate in mountainous area can be attributed to migration and a high birth rate. Population growth pressure on the environment is very great, clearly reflected in the widespread deforestation and degradation of forest quality. Between mountainous and delta areas, there remains a very big gap in economic development, living standards and capacity for meeting essential needs of human beings, especially public services such as healthcare, education and culture. In the mountains of the north west, north east and the Central Highlands, the hunger and poverty rate is the highest in the country, while human development index (HDI) is the lowest. Under the present market mechanisms, this gap has an upward tendency, threatening to cause social conflicts in the future.

To advance to sustainable development in mountainous and ethnic minority areas, the following priority activities need to be carried out:

- To increase investment in infrastructure (electricity, roads, schools, health stations, irrigation, etc.) in service of production and the improvement of ethnic minority people’s life, ensuring balanced and rational development as well as reducing the development gap between regions and nationalities.

- To link investment in production to investment in product processing and trading through the expansion of services, processing industries, information networks, oriented and organized purchase in order to encourage production, increase incomes and improve living standards for producers.

- To attach importance to investment in human resource education and training as well as talent fostering in combination with post-training rational recruitment and employment to meet the demand for manpower and create a contingent of ethnic minority cadres.

- To combine administrative reform with the integration and raising of the effectiveness of national targets programs and projects for supporting mountainous areas and ethnic minority people.

- To preserve and develop cultures of all nationalities, build up a new cultured living style.

- To place emphasis on mobilizing ethnic minorities to take part in planting and protecting forests; realize the policies on supplying food and subsidies to those who have contracts to protect and tend forests.

h/ Intellectuals and scientists:

Scientific and technological development is the top national policy, the cornerstone and driving force for strongly accelerating the country's industrialization and modernization in the 21st century. So far, Vietnam has had considerable scientific and technological potential, capable of providing scientific justifications for the country's development undertaking and policy formulation and quickly absorbing the world's scientific and technological achievements, and gradually striving to resolve many scientific and technological issues posed by the country's practical requirements.

However, scientific and technological activities still have a lot of limitations, failing to meet the requirements of socio-economic development and environmental protection in the country's accelerated industrialization and modernization period. They have not yet truly played the role of driving force and cornerstone for development in the following aspects:

- Scientific and technological potential is still at a low level as compared to the world and region, failing to meet the requirements of development.

- Economic management mechanisms have not yet created a close link between scientific and technological activities and socio-economic ones for creating a real driving force and abundant resources for science and technology development.

- Scientific and technological management mechanisms have been slowly renewed and have not yet substantially renewed. There is not yet the link between economic management mechanisms and scientific and technological management ones. Material interests and worthy respects for scientists and technologists who have great contributions have not yet been ensured.

- The science and technology market has not yet been developed.

The following priority activities need to be carried out so that science and technology can become a cornerstone and driving force of sustainable development:

- To further promote propagation and education to raise the awareness of the role of science and technology in the country's industrialization and modernization for all people, administrations at all levels and branches. On this basis, administrations at all levels, branches and units shall formulate and resolutely implement their own action programs on science and technology.

- To more strongly renovate the economic management mechanisms to establish a socio-economic environment along the direction of facilitating, encouraging and binding enterprises of all economic sectors to invest in research to renovate technology, apply clean and environmentally friendly technology, renovate and improve their products' competitiveness in domestic and foreign markets.

- To strictly implement the promulgated Law on Science and Technology. To conduct a review of scientific and technological activities over the past years and multiply in a timely manner good models and good ways of doing things which have been tested and proven in practice.

- To remove problems and obstacles for expanding and developing the scientific and technological market, considering this as the most urgent, basic and long-term task to bring into full play the role of a cornerstone and driving force of science and technology.

- In addition to taking measures to train scientific and technological human resources, to give emphasis and high priority to researches into, and implementation of, policies on use and preferential treatment of talented scientists and technologists, thus contributing to effectively performing socio-economic development tasks.

- To further construct scientific and technological infrastructure for rapidly integrating into the world and region, especially infrastructure for scientific and technological information, research equipment for key national laboratories.

III. International cooperation for sustainable development

To actively take part in international activities for sustainable development. The objectives of international cooperation for sustainable development are as follows:

- To strongly promote international cooperation on environmental development and protection. To fully enforce international treaties on sustainable development which Vietnam has signed and acceded to.

- To further attract international technical, technological and financial assistance for hunger eradication and poverty reduction to advance towards sustainable development.

Priority activities in the domain of international cooperation for sustainable development:

1. To continue with renewal policies which attract foreign individuals and international organizations in the implementation of the Oriented Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam.

2. To enhance international cooperation within the United Nations' Committees on sustainable development.

3. To intensify international cooperation in international economic integration, education and training, science and technology, especially transfer of clean and environmentally friendly technologies. To take initiative in disseminating experiences and advanced technologies which have been successfully applied in Vietnam to international communities, especially the developing countries.

4. To identify an effective mechanism for international cooperation, through international dialogues and exchanges, in order to maintain the existing development support and seek new assistance for Vietnam to participate efficiently in international activities aimed at protecting the global environment, in order to make up for economic burdens that the country has to bear in fulfilling its obligations to protect the global environment.

5. To participate actively in global environmental protection activities. To expand linkages and cooperation with international communities, particularly on the control of gas emissions which causes greenhouse effect, the use of substances substituting those which may damage the ozone layer, the restriction of the pollution from hazardous chemicals and waste and the control of the border-cross transportation thereof, and in the protection of the marine environment and bio-diversity.

6. To enhance the exchange of information about sustainable development with the international community and disseminate advanced international experiences in the field.

7. To promote cooperation in the areas of sustainable development and environmental protection with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and in Southeast Asia. To attach importance to cooperation for sustainable development of the Mekong river basin.

8. To take initiative in joining in international environmental observation and scientific research systems to collect information on the environment and sustainable development.

9. To seek international assistance in environmental research, data collection and processing, implementing projects on natural disaster prevention and control, natural resource and environmental protection.

10. To closely cooperate with donor countries and international organizations so that the sources of official development assistance (ODA) can be used efficiently for sustainable development.

11. To place emphasis on encouraging overseas Vietnamese community, especially businessmen and intellectuals, to contribute to promoting and supporting sustainable development in Vietnam.

For the Prime Minister

Deputy Prime Minister
NGUYEN TAN DUNG